All through the night
by mieh
Summary: Harvey and Donna make a deal about their relationship after the other time, creating a once a year tradition. Rated T/M.
1. Chapter 1

**All through the night**

**Summary: **Harvey and Donna make a deal about their relationship after the other time, creating a once a year tradition.

**Rating:** T/M.

**AN:** This fic is dedicated and credited to darveydreamin who had this amazing idea and prompted it on twitter and was so generous to let me write it and is so lovely to me all the time. I hope I make justice to it.  
Credits to Blue for betaing and apologies for the fact that I keep writing after you already betaed and may possibly make you look bad on the internet. And credits to Follow-ur-Shadow because I'm totally copying this little fic summary-format here from her haha

Reviews are very much appreciated and I hope you enjoy this, from the bottom of my heart.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Harvey doesn't get nervous about sex.

The last time that happened he was a freshman at his first college party, about to have sex with a blonde, perky sophomore and he was worried there might be something he hadn't quite managed to pick up during his high school years. Ever since and pretty much for his entire life he's been confident not only in his abilities in the bedroom, but also his abilities to get a girl to the bedroom in the first place.

He doesn't get nervous at all, as a general rule. He especially doesn't when he knows he's got a sure thing.

He knows he's getting this girl tonight and he also knows the sex is going to be great. He remembers, with astonishing clarity for a guy who can't even remember his own phone number, the way their bodies mold to one another so smoothly. Perfect fit. He remembers how soft and warm and tight she feels and the way she does that thing with her tongue on his ear and her fingers—

Bottom line is, he knows it's gonna be great.

Still, he's been turning up the air conditioner all afternoon to prevent himself from breaking out in nervous sweats and trying to chug down the somersaults in his stomach with copious amounts of coffee every time she gets up from her chair and he thinks she's entering his office.

Okay, so he's a bit on edge. No big deal, he figures. He could just as easily call it horny and that much he absolutely won't deny because Donna is hot and he's been waiting for this day for a damn long time.

He's been waiting for this for exactly eight months, if he's counting — and he is.

.

.

It's one of their late nights in the new law firm. He closed a case, Jessica will be proud when she hears all about it in the morning and now he has Donna in his office, finally drinking the bottle of scotch he bought himself when he first moved in to said office.

She's sitting across the table from him, relaxed back on the chair, sipping on a drink and chatting away. Her hair is swept over one shoulder and she lifts a hand to slightly move her bangs to the side with the back of her fingers. Her dress is particularly low cut today, the dark fabric dipping down in a way that Harvey cannot, for the life of him, concentrate on anything other than the swell of her breasts and the idea that has been persistently nagging his brain for almost four whole months now.

On one hand, it would be breaking his promise to her because he _needs_ to mention it again. On the other, he already did break it because he sure as hell hasn't put it out of his mind.

He finishes his drink in one go, sits up straight in his chair, and when he notices the pause in her speech — either because she finished what she was saying and it's his time to respond or because she notices something in him, he couldn't say — he calmly lays out his words to her.

He is a lawyer. This is a negotiation. He can close this deal.

"I'd like to renegotiate the terms of our agreement," he says.

She frowns, amused by his sudden seriousness, placing her drink on the desk. "What agreement?"

"The one where we agreed not to mention that we slept together."

It's the first time he manages to make Donna speechless. No. Scratch that, it's the second, the first being the time he told her he didn't want to lose her. Interesting coincidence how both times she lost her wits involved the same subject, he thinks.

"Harvey…" she warns, glancing sideways to escape his rather determined gaze.

"Just hear me out. If you don't agree to what I'm about to propose we can just go back to the original deal."

"It wasn't a _deal_, it was a condition. For me to come work for you."

"Which I agreed to. Hence, it's a deal."

She huffs and rolls her eyes and he senses it doesn't matter what he calls it, he's still pissing her off. Or making her nervous. She's definitely feeling _something_. Though he can't quite place it, he knows he needs to work his angle fast.

"Just… listen to what I have to say. Come on, what would be the harm in that?"

She could argue it could cause _a lot _of harm and regret and shame but she lets him make his case.

"Things between us have been… a little awkward." She rolls her eyes again and he presses, "I know I'm not crazy here. This is not our normal."

"Well, because your normal is flirting with everything that moves, including me, and you can't do that anymore because…" she stops for a bit, frowning at him. "Is this what you're worried about? You're feeling awkward about flirting with women in front of me now that we have…" she raises her brows in implication, letting her question die down before she adds, "You can flirt with whoever you want, Harvey, I'm not gonna get jealous."

He will never admit to that, but the way she says it… so detached. It bothers him. No that he wants her to be jealous, but…

"That's not what I'm worried about," he answers, tone as casual as hers. "And I flirt, by the way, I flirt."

"So what's the problem?"

"The problem is I still remember what you taste like and how your body and your mouth feel and sometimes I'm trying to have a professional conversation with you and the memory is goddamn distracting and I think it's creating a lot of unnecessary tension in our work relationship."

Her breath catches in her throat so suddenly she almost chokes. She shifts in her chair trying to get her bearings back, because damn it if he isn't right. She can remember _exactly _the things his body and mouth could do to her and 'tense' is only one way to call how the memory makes her feel.

She clears her throat as subtly as she can manage under his unwavering stare.

"Okay… and how do you propose we… solve this problem?"

"I think we should have sex again."

"What?!" Incredibly, she really didn't see this one coming.

"Just to take the edge off and then—"

"In your dreams, Specter."

"Exactly, Donna, it's in my fucking dreams. Sometimes it keeps me up at night."

_Dammit_. He can't believe he let that admission slide.

She can't either. She's gotten in his head and under his skin and she's relieved to know she's not the only one having trouble moving on, except not really because his proposal says a lot about how he feels about her. Or rather _doesn't _feel. He doesn't want _her_. He wants one more night. He wants to get her out of his system.

But really, what would be the harm in that? They've already slept together once, so it's not forbidden territory anymore. More than that, they've licked whipped cream off of the other's bodies, and shared strawberries between kisses and showered together and—

_Oh god._ She crosses her legs.

Besides, she doesn't want a relationship with him. He is her boss and it's obviously a terrible idea for a secretary to get involved in a relationship with her boss. He's also completely emotionally unavailable and it's an even worse idea to get involved in a relationship with a guy who's just not ready for it.

So… maybe…

She's been quiet for a while, absently biting her lips while Harvey just waits, trying to gage something from her expression. His fists are clenched over the table, fingernails digging into his palms and his throat bobs when she finally says something.

"But how would sleeping together again solve our problem?"

"_Our_ problem?" he raises one eyebrow, completely incapable of avoiding teasing her. "Are you saying you've been having the same problem as me?"

"Shut up. How would that solve it? We'd sleep together and, assuming we didn't just have beginner's luck or were both on a sugar high from all the whipped cream," he chokes on a snort but that doesn't stop her, "it's going to be as good as the first time was and then the next day we'll be back here dealing with the fresh awkwardness all over again."

"Better," he says.

"What?"

"It's gonna be better. Second times are always better than first times and so on and so forth…"

"You and I both know we've already had our second time. And third." She raises a teasing eyebrow in his direction.

"So you can confirm that my theory is right." He smirks smugly. "And imagine what the fourth is going to feel like."

That's a daunting thought that leaves them suspended in silence. They stare into each other's eyes. Unmoving, barely breathing, faint shivers running down their skin.

Donna swallows. "I have a counter offer."

"Shoot."

"We have sex—"

"Deal."

She snorts.

"We have sex… once a year. To take the edge off, like you said. We can call it our new ritual, to celebrate the day I agreed to come to Pearson Hardman with you."

"Once _a year?_" Harvey asks seeming slightly horrified by her proposal.

"Your offer was _once, _Harvey. I'm offering you more."

Something in the word 'more' stirs low on his stomach while he stumbles on his words. "I didn't really mean…"

"What? Were you already planning on breaking your deal before I even agreed to it?"

"_No_." He poses firmly, more because he knows it's the right answer than because he actually means it. Not that he was planning on breaking the deal and insisting they make sex a recurring feature in their relationship, exactly, just that he hadn't thought much past getting her to agree to it in the first place. "But I see what you're trying to pass on the fine letter of this agreement."

She bites her lips, eyes locked on his as he studies her intention. She then raises her eyebrows and he huffs in irritation.

"You're gonna make me crazy."

"Why?" she asks as innocently as she can possibly muster.

"Are you seriously suggesting we wait another eight goddamn months to do this?"

"Somebody's been counting…"

He ignores her tease, frustration and unattended desire making him less than patient. "Why? Why wait? We could be out of here right now and in my bed in thirty minutes."

She shimmies in her chair and looks over her shoulder out the glass walls of the office, concerned someone might have heard him, feeling her skin prickle in response to his words, heat running down her spine.

"Harvey!" she scolds in a hushed tone. And then she breathes out, trying to steady herself for what she's about to say. "Because… if we can't wait a few months then this deal is doomed to fail."

'_If we can't stop thinking about each other'_ \- is what she thinks, but doesn't say, because it sounds a bit too intense in her head.

"How do you figure that?" he asks.

"We've had sex four months ago. How long did it take you to feel like you needed it again? How long have you been thinking about this new proposal of yours?"

Harvey shifts uncomfortably in his chair and he doesn't have to be vocal for her to know.

"Say we go right now and _take the edge off_. How long do you think it's gonna take for 'the edge' to be back with a vengeance?" She tries to make light of it but it falls short. "And then we'll just keep… needing it and I'm pretty sure that's going to be way more difficult to deal with."

"You're talking like we're recovering addicts."

"Tell me I'm wrong."

She's not. He wants her right now. _Needs her_ right now. But she's not wrong because he's sure as hell he's going to still need her tomorrow. Both in his bed and right here in his office because he's a better lawyer with her and he doesn't want to lose her and ultimately that's what makes him agree with this torturous new idea of hers. Because knowing himself as well as he does, he sure would lose her if he put a third offer on the table — one that would allow him to have sex with her tonight and every night after this one.

What she doesn't tell him is her second reasoning. The fact that this way, with the lack of attachment and expectations and all the time in between to try and recover, this way, she's less likely to fall for him.

"Who says I'll still want this after all that time?" he asks.

She merely raises an eyebrow, challenging his desire for her because that much is obvious.

He smirks and rephrases what he meant. "Who says _we'll_ still want it?"

"Well, if we don't then… better yet. Problem solved. Isn't this what we're doing here? Trying to solve this problem?"

He wants her and she's telling him he can't have her right now and damn her and all her rules. Except this time she's closing a window but not locking him out entirely. At least he has a key this time and a possibility is better than nothing. Later is better than never again.

"Okay," he says into the silence.

"Okay?"

"Okay. We have a new agreement."

He offers her his hand over the table to seal their agreement. She reaches for him and places her hand in his and, just like that, it's binding.

"You better not go back on this one, mister," she says, trying to brush away the tension from the moment.

"You better not either," his tone is deep and his eyes focused, locking her hands more strongly in his, locking her to the promise. "Eight months, Donna."

.

.

She's felt his eyes burning on the back of her neck through the glass the entire day and it really didn't help with the the hot waves breaking under her skin since she woke up today.

He hasn't said a word on the matter and she avoided going into his office as much as possible. She's not avoiding _him_, she's just… nervous.

How the hell is she supposed to know if they're on the same page or not? Eight months have passed without either of them mentioning a single word on the topic, just like they agreed they wouldn't, but now there's the matter of… _closing_ _the deal_ and there's this one last clause up for debate which is determining if they both still want it and she sure as hell isn't about to up and ask him.

He'd been with Scottie not a month ago on a business trip, she knows that much. And things between herself and Harvey have been absolutely normal, whatever that means for them. They still drink and their smiles still linger and they still flirt in a completely casual manner. Sometimes he calls her late at night or wakes her up at six in the morning but that's also their normal.

So how the hell is she supposed to know?

About mid afternoon she gets a grip and realizes she looks hot and he's hot for her, they're both single and there's absolutely no reason why they wouldn't do this, especially when opportunity has been such a long time coming.

Confirmation comes in the way his voice is lower than usual on the intercom, hoarse and… sexy. In the way his eyes rake over her entire body when she walks to his desk for the first time in the day. He smirks and he's just a bit too smug, even for him, and she figures he still wants this.

Which is exactly why Donna is so shocked when she comes back from the copy room to find out he's gone home for the night.

The lights are out in his office and she checks her phone to see if he texted her about meeting or his plans for the night, but there's nothing.

Son of a bitch. Couldn't even have the courtesy of letting her down like a gentleman. But then again, if he were a gentleman, they wouldn't even have this agreement at all.

In the privacy of her own mind she can admit she's pissed. And frustrated. _Sexually frustrated_, an annoying inner voice reminds her. But she tries to be rational about it. They agreed that maybe, after all that time, they might not still want this and it's a little annoying that Harvey's gotten over his 'problem' before she did but she said it herself this was the whole point. If he did it so can she.

Except he's downstairs. Waiting for her on the street, holding on to a cab door. Still with that son of a bitch of a smirk on his lips and looking incredibly smug.

She halts to a stop in front of him, chin lowering and eyebrows raising.

"What took you so long?" he asks.

"I'm sorry, did we have plans?" she moves a pointed finger between the two of them, putting on her best act.

"_You know_ we do."

She considers teasing him some more. But the way he looks at her makes her heart skip a beat. It's been too long since she's seen his eyes that dark and he's moving to wordlessly invite her in to the cab, a hand hovering on the small of her back and he's not touching her but she feels it. She goddamn feels it, the heat emanating from his palm. He moves from the door and stops right in front of her, his face so close her eyes go out of focus, involuntarily dropping to his lips.

"Just get inside the car."

He doesn't usually give her orders, which is rather uncommon considering he's her boss, but he doesn't. She usually just knows what to do. But right now, in this situation they've gotten themselves into, she has no idea what to do and the feeling thrills her.

She smiles. It's tight lipped and teasing, the way the corners of her mouth pull just a bit while she drags her eyes back to his. Then she turns and gets inside the cab and hopes she's not making a huge mistake.

Harvey had already told the driver where to so their destination is a mystery to her and she makes it a point of honor not to ask. Are they going to his apartment? Hers, for the sake of tradition? A hotel room?

When they get off in front of a building it's a familiar one, but entirely not what she expected.

"I thought we…" she stumbles a little.

"Keep it in your pants, Paulsen. Do you really just want me for my body?"

She spurts out a laugh and she's still laughing when he guides her inside the bar, with the widest, cheshire cat grin on his face as she keeps giggling.

It's the bar where they first met, which she refrains from calling 'their bar' and she could think they're being sentimental about it, but she could also think it's just a nice bar, close by from work, where they have been to on more than one occasion because the bartender knows them and their glasses are never empty.

And the truth is, they have fun. They always have fun together. This is their normal, smiling and drinking and flirting and, even if tonight they know the flirting is leading somewhere, even if just for tonight, this really is them.

They still don't touch. Maybe because there might be people they know in the place or because it's a habit not to. But he sits close to her and drinks up every word out of her mouth and he doesn't remember the last time he had smiled this much. An annoying thought tells him maybe it was _exactly_ a year ago in her apartment but he doesn't focus on the idea, just on how rosy her lips are and the way her mouth moves when she says the words 'szechuan peppercorn' and he places a hand on her knee under the table.

"Do you wanna go?"

She shivers under his touch and his words and that is a whole new kind of a turn on to him, getting Donna to shiver.

She nods a bit, a whispered "yeah" escaping her lips and he's squeezing her knee and biting his lip and gesturing for the bill.

They end up going to her place because it's closer and also seems kind of natural going to ground zero, the place where they had their first time.

He missed her more than he thought and that's something he realizes the second she's in his arms again. He sucks on her lips and her neck and the soft skin on the underside of her breasts like he's starving, because _he is_. He's intoxicated by a stronger version of her scent, one that lingers faintly around his office but that he now breathes in directly from the crook of her neck, face buried in her hair.

He's more accustomed to her voice than his own, listening to it all day, sometimes even inside his head like a voice of reason, but the raspiness in her tone when she moans his name is something he's _not_ accustomed to and it excites him more than he ever thought was possible.

They've been working side by side for so long and he likes to think he knows her pretty well but he discovers a new freckle on her skin at each swipe of his tongue and a new soft spot that makes her squirm under him at each touch of his fingers and he's eager to learn so much more.

The feeling of her legs around his body and the way he fits between them will probably make the year ahead pretty difficult to go through, but she rakes her short nails up the extent of his back and into his hair and traps his lower lip between her teeth and he just wants to stay right here, in this moment, forever.

.

.

They quickly brushed up on a few details before he left.

They agreed it was probably best if he didn't stay the night. The other time, their first time, he stayed through the night and although morning sex was _great_ — a point he didn't fail to make when they were discussing the subject — they both agreed it made saying goodbye that much more awkward.

They also thought sleeping together could potentially cause complications and they should avoid anything that could mess up their agreement because, after everything that happened that night, they both agreed they had a really great deal going, one that neither was willing to compromise.

At the office the next morning, she brings him his messages and reminds him of his appointments for the day. They move on as if nothing had happened and don't mention it again.

At least not for another year.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN:** How do I even begin to thank you for the reviews on the first chapter? The amount of support I got was unbelievable. As in actually couldn't believe it. And then I did and my heart was so full! Thank you. It truly means the world.

A few people I absolutely love decided to all be born around the same time. And I wish I could write a fic for each one of them, but I am just one, smol, slow writer, so I dedicate this chapter to _Beatriz, Lila _and_ Mari_. Thank you for the friendship, support and laughs and for being just overall amazing. I hope this makes you happy.  
And as always, thank you to Blue for being my beta and cheerleader.

I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! It was written with all the love. And hope you have the merriest of Christmases!

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**Chapter 2**

Their arrangement works.

It's like a goal, a yearly finish line, something to look forward to. Through work demands, arguments, pointless flirting, frustrations, late night drinks in his office and other people existing in between them — no matter what, they know they'll be together again in a year's time.

The following weeks they are a little more careful around each other, keeping a professional distance and going out of their way not to let their glances linger or their fingers brush, as if one touch would be enough to make them lose control. But days pass and they're back to their natural rhythm. Comfortable and slipping back into all their old habits. Every year in a cycle — the anticipation, the sex, the respectable act right after and then… back to normal.

Until next year.

They go to a bar or Del Posto and there's no doubt anymore, when the day comes, that they both want to go through with it. They talk and they have been drinking progressively less before their nights together. At a point there on their second or third time, Donna will admit she was using alcohol to numb down her nerves and get a little loose, but soon enough sex with Harvey, like everything else about him, became familiar.

She knows what makes him sigh and groan and tighten his grip on her hair. She knows when he grabs her waist _just so_ he wants to take charge, wants her to surrender completely to his will, and she does because he also knows exactly what to do to her body to make her writhe and moan and lose her mind. She knows he likes to stay inside of her just a little while longer after he comes.

And she knows all of this even when she's in a relationship with another guy who, no matter how much she lies to herself, does not make her feel the things Harvey does.

She's been with Mark for six months. And god, she likes him. She likes him a lot. He's attentive and worships her, has a career she actually admires, the sex is great and he's nice. He really is. But she can't help thinking just how inconvenient her current relationship is to her plans with Harvey. She hates herself for thinking that, she's happy with Mark, wants to make this relationship work, but she just can't avoid the disappointment every time she glances at a calendar.

It also feels like a cruel joke from the Universe that her six month anniversary with Mark falls on the exact same day of her… anniversary with Harvey? She doesn't even know what the hell she should call it. The day she came to his desk. And the day they've been coming together every year since. Not that it would make a difference if it had been a day prior or later but it still feels like someone particularly cruel is pranking her.

They haven't talked about the situation at all. Of course it goes without saying — she's in a relationship, neither of them would cheat, and they both know it. But it's going to be the first time they don't spend the night together ever since they started spending nights together. It feels tearing and definitive in a way she's not sure she's ready to accept. There's something to be said there, she just doesn't know what.

And to make things just a bit more difficult, Louis had just been promoted to junior partner ahead of Harvey, after getting the better of him in the deal with Hardman, so she knows Harvey's not in the best frame of mind, to put it lightly.

Deciding she should at least give him a heads up, because if the situation was reversed she would like him to acknowledge it somehow, she knocks on his door one mid afternoon, hoping he's in a good enough mood for what she's about to say.

"Harvey. There's something I wanna tell you but I need to know if you're over what happened with Louis and the promotion."

"I'm fine, Donna," he says in a dispirited tone and she figures it's the best she's gonna get.

She asks to leave early the next night, which is really just her way of telling him she won't be there. And she won't be with him. He asks what for and he has a look on his face when she tells him it's her six month anniversary with Mark, a weird amusement on his features, and eventually she realizes that look is there because he already knew why she wouldn't.

"What's that face?"

"Nothing, I guess I just didn't think you were one of those people."

"What people?"

"The people that celebrate their niece's third grade graduation like it was the moon landing."

"And when was the last time _you_ saw anyone seriously for six months?" She knows he hasn't been with anyone for as long as she knows him. Slept around _plenty_ though, she thinks as she inwardly rolls her eyes, making an effort to maintain a straight face.

"I'm not the topic of this conversation."

"How could you be?" She sits down across from him, glad they're able to have this conversation without it being _too_ awkward. "Because we're talking about a mature and committed relationship."

"You're right, Donna, we are. Which is why I got you a gift to celebrate your anniversary."

And there it is. Awkward as fuck.

She gives him a tight lipped smile as she reaches for the envelope he's handing her, mind going a mile a minute trying to understand why on earth would Harvey get her a gift to celebrate her anniversary with another man. He doesn't even get her gifts for her birthday, for god's sake, and now _this_?

It's a gift card, which she obviously and politely declines, saying something about how it would make Mark feel, having Harvey help pay for their date.

She thanks him. Not for the weird gift card or the weird talk but for not making any of it more difficult than it had to be. And then she's lingering there, lost in his eyes, until she remembers she has work to do and another man waiting for her.

.

.

_If you really wanna help, promise you won't call or interrupt us the entire night _— she had told him and that, more than anything, cut him right to the bone.

What the fuck does she think of him? That he would call her in the middle of a date with her boyfriend to demand that she went to him, because she was supposed to be his for the night?

Or maybe the fact that she made it so fucking clear that she wasn't cuts him deeper.

He likes to think that he handled the situation with unsuspectable casualty. That was the whole point of getting that stupid gift card she refused — he knew she would come and talk to him about dropping out of their agreement and he wanted to be prepared somehow. Despite all his knowing and preparation, it bothered him. He would never admit to it, but it bothered him.

He never expected that relationship to last quite that much — her relationships usually don't — and the longer it lasted and the closer it got to their day, the more wound up he got about it. And he hates that he knows exactly when her anniversary with her boyfriend is, that he'd been keeping track, because he'd been counting the days to be with her again.

And it doesn't help at all that Jessica won't have his back and she's making him bend a knee to Louis, work with him as a sixth year associate while that idiot is partner and is rubbing Harvey's face in it.

When everything goes to shit, when Jessica kicks him out of court with his tail between his legs, he decides to go along with Alex's plan, to accept a partner position at Bratton Gould and leave Pearson Hardman and it doesn't even cross his mind for one second that Donna might not want to go with him.

In his head, they are this undivisible unit. One can't work without the other in that weird symbiosis they've been living. But maybe, just maybe, she can do without him just fine and he just never considered it.

When he tells her he got _them_ an offer at Bratton Gould and that they would be gone by the end of the week, she's pissed off and he doesn't really get it. Her job is assisting _him._ What the hell difference does it make if it's at Pearson Hardman or anywhere else?

"I gave Alex my word. It's a done deal," he tells her when she questions his decision to leave.

"Well, it may be a done deal for you, but it isn't a done deal for me."

"Donna—" he tries to dismiss her, but gets cuff off.

"I like it here, Harvey, and you can't just make this kind of decision about my life without running it by me first."

"If this is your way of trying to get me to stay—"

"I'm not trying to get you to do anything, but I'm not just gonna follow you out the door without thinking this through."

"What do you want, Donna? You want an apology?" he asks, full of annoyance. "Well, here it is: I'm sorry I didn't consult with you."

"I don't want an apology, Harvey. I wanted to talk this thing through with you which, by the way, is what you should've done with Jessica."

"Well, you know what, Donna? I didn't come to you for advice. I came to tell you to start packing. But if you don't wanna come with me, then don't come with me."

She scoffs her disappointment and leaves, leaving him hoping to god she doesn't call his bluff.

.

.

There's a loud knock on his door. And again, and again, repeatedly just in the time it takes to drag himself from the couch to the door wondering who the hell it could possibly be that they managed to get through security downstairs without no one having called in.

Because he's not an optimist, it doesn't even for a second cross his mind that it could actually be the only person he wishes it to be because she's A. on a date and B. pissed as hell at him. But then he swings the door open and barely has enough time to look at her there, sighing heavily at his threshold, before her arms are folded around him and her mouth is on his.

He kisses her back before he can think of it, hands reaching for her waist and lips moving to accommodate hers. Then reality catches up and he pulls himself back, a hand coming up to cup her face as he stares her down.

He takes a deep breath, swallowing down the urge to keep kissing her. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened," she says, and she reaches forward in a way her parted lips _almost_ brush his.

"Donna..."

"We broke up."

He stays still for a fleeting second, not even long enough to consider asking why or whether she's okay, because as selfish as it is, he can have her. She's here, giving herself to him, and he can have her right now.

There's a brightness in her eyes that flicker when she stares at him, and she looks so certain, though he doesn't know about what. He's not an optimist but he hopes it's about him. About this moment, about the fact that they should just be together because they've waited a whole year for this and they'll have to wait another one to have this moment back. So to hell with it — they should make the moment count.

He draws them closer, kissing her slowly, hand moving to the nape of her neck and under her hair as he sucks on her bottom lip, but Donna's having none of it. She lets her purse fall to the floor, fists the fabric of his shirt and slides her tongue against his and there's nothing tender about it when she grabs at his belt and pulls him harder into her body.

He closes the door behind her, and presses her up against it, and he's trying to slow down their kisses. He considers offering her a drink and then she's unbuttoning his shirt, without ever letting their lips part.

He grabs her hands where they are, pressing them against the bare skin of his chest, and pulls apart a tiny bit, watching her trying to reach him, with closed eyes and parted lips, before she relents to meeting his gaze, dropping her head back against the door.

"You okay?" he asks.

She hikes one leg up and around his hip, grinding against the hardness that's started to grow in his pants, watching as he closes his eyes and draws in a sharp breath, making so much effort to remain in control and not give in to her.

"I'm perfect. How are you?" she replies in a casual tone, cocking her head to the side and trying to run her fingertips over his skin, even though he's holding her hands in a firm grasp.

"I'm a bit surprised."

"Hm. Well, I'm nothing if not unpredictable." She's able to reach his mouth again, lazily running her lips over his until he melts and lets go of her hands in favor of running his fingers into her hair.

She takes his shirt off while they kiss and feels him grow harder between her legs. Her hands quickly descend and unbuckle his belt, cupping and rubbing him through his slacks and his groans.

"Are you sure you're okay to do this?" His words are muffled into her neck.

"Don't you want to?" she asks, but they both know he does, which is why he gives her a hard grind, knocking her into the door with a soft thud, telling her not to ask stupid questions, and she lets out a shaky, breathy moan.

"Harvey, nothing's changed…" she tells him, so close to his mouth he could swallow every word, and then moving to his jaw line, her breath on his skin. "I'm broken up and I'm here and I want you."

Donna moves from the snug space between himself and the door and walks into the apartment. She's right in the middle of his living room when she glances back to check, but of course he's right there, no more than three steps behind her.

She smirks, seductive and knowing, a come hither look in her eyes. She's staring over her shoulder at him when her fingers reach back and she slides the zipper of her dress all the way down her spine and lets it fall to the floor. She doesn't keep looking to see his reaction, though. She just swiftly steps out of the pool of fabric, with an elegance that doesn't often shows itself on women wearing only lingerie and heels, and moves to his bedroom, knowing he couldn't follow behind faster.

He meets her at the side of the bed and tries to kiss her, but she sits down, legs parted with him between her thighs and makes quick work of pushing his pants and briefs down, hands running up his thighs until she takes the base of his cock in her hands and looks him in the eye.

She doesn't even blink as she moves the tip of her tongue all the way around the ridge of his cock.

His thigh actually trembles beneath her palm and he expels a staggered breath. "Jesus, Donna…"

It's only a moment or two of delicately caressing him with her tongue and connecting with his eyes and then she's taking the entire length of his dick into her mouth. Or at least as much as she can take, until her lips make contact with her fingers around his base and he's gasping and grabbing her hair.

She uses her hands and tongue and lips in a rapid succession that has him constantly groaning. She sucks, hollowing her cheeks and bobbing her head up and down his length and it's too much, too fast and she hasn't really looked at him since she's taken him into her mouth, which he now tells her to do with a slight pull of her hair, his other hand coming to cup her face.

"Slow down…" he pleads, breathless. "I've waited a whole year for this and the way you're going we're gonna be finished in ten minutes."

She takes her hands off of him, giving him permission and control to do this, to use her however he pleases, to fuck her however he likes, because after what she's given up for him today, after what she was forced to admit to herself, she feels like he already does.

_I want you to say that you're not gonna follow the guy wherever he goes for the rest of your life._

_I'm not gonna say that…_

She didn't even know that was how she felt until that very moment. It had never crossed her mind to leave Harvey, but she also didn't know she couldn't. She _wouldn't_. Until Mark made her choose and it was instinctual, second nature. She didn't have to think for a second before the truth tumbled out of her lips — she just wouldn't leave him.

And now, with her lips wrapped around his dick, she just can't bare to think about it.

She can't think about why she chose Harvey — everything they are but don't have — over the possibility of a life and a family with Mark. Even though Mark was so perfect and Harvey was a thoughtless idiot who expected her to change her entire life for him without even talking it through with her, even when he apparently _could_ leave her, as he so aggressively made clear when he dismissed her by telling her if she didn't want to go with him, then to just don't.

She can't think of it because it would crush her, because in the back of her mind, buried deep inside her heart and running feverishly under her skin, _she knows why_. And if she acknowledges it to herself even… she could never go back.

So she needs this to go harder, faster, deeper. To be fucked into oblivion.

But he doesn't.

Instead he uses the power she had just given in to him to move slower in and out of her mouth, her tongue smooth and wet on the underside of his cock as he moves.

He takes the base of his cock in his hand, the other one placed on the side of her neck, thumb brushing her cheek, and he slowly moves the head of his cock all over her parted lips, looking at her with the most intense, focused expression she's ever seen in his eyes while he takes deep breaths trying to get a hold of himself.

She doesn't know if she feels absolutely adored or just used but, either way, this needs to stop because it's not what she needs from him tonight.

Donna pushes him back and he's too turned on to notice the aggressiveness in her move. She unhooks her bra, and before it even reaches the floor, Harvey's hands are on her breasts, cupping and squeezing and he leans down to kiss her, but she pulls away before he can, moving back to the center of the bed, darkened eyes fixed on his.

She lies back on her elbows, hands teasing the nipples he had just been forced to abadom until he frees his ankles from his pants and finally, after an entire year of longing, places his body above hers in bed.

He leans down to kiss her, but she escapes him again, turning around to lay on her stomach, looking over her shoulder and raising her eyebrows at him.

He smirks at her move, lips reaching down to the back of her shoulder instead. He bites on her skin and roughly moves her hair to the side to kiss and lick at the back of her neck, placing open mouthed kisses all over the long expanse of her back, tongue playing with her freckles as his hand caresses her sides, under her body to squeeze her breasts, open palm running up the back of her thigh and gripping her ass.

Harvey moves down and slowly pulls her underwear over the round curve of her ass and down her legs, tossing it to the floor and going back to reacquainting himself with her body, hands and mouth wandering all over her skin.

But she doesn't need this right now, doesn't want it. He needs to stop adoring and worshiping her and start fucking her otherwise the reasons for the choice she made tonight will get a lot more clear and complicated and painful and she's just not ready to face it.

In retaliation to his tenderness, Donna bends her knees on the mattress, balancing on her forearms and pushing her hips up and Harvey actually _moans_ at the view.

He places his palms on her ass and squeezes her cheeks apart and then moves his fingers between her legs to find her wet and wanting. He rubs her pussy up and down, spreading the wetness before he fits a couple of fingers inside her, enjoying the picture and the raspy moans from the back of her throat.

He takes his time with his fingers, his other hand caressing her lower back, lips finding the soft skin of her backside until she can't take it anymore. She just needs him.

"Harvey… just— _please_."

He positions himself on his knees behind her, his hand running up the entire expanse of her spine to the back of her neck, pressing her face down into the pillow, making her push her hips higher up for him. He places kisses on her shoulder blades as he rubs his cock on her pussy and when she spreads her knees further apart, he pushes deep into her center.

He moves deep and slow, his fingers pulling on Donna's hair enough to make her twist around so he can finally kiss her, all messy and hungry for her.

She pushes her hips back into him, urging him to move faster and he obliges, kneeling back again, gripping her hips with both hands and pulling her back into him forcefully until the room is taken with the noises of skin slapping against skin and the sweet sounds of her helpless whimpers spurring him on more than anything.

He fucks her hard because he's smart enough to have realized by now that's what she wants tonight — and it also just feels _so goddamn good_. He looks at their bodies joining as he pushes in and out of her. The grip he has on her hips will probably leave marks on her pale skin. Her moans are muffled against the pillow but he can still make out the _oh fucks_ and _Harvey_ and _harder_.

He really can't hold out much longer. He just needs her to come…

He lays down against her back, one hand moving under her body to hastily rub at her clit, the other balancing his weight on top of her. His mouth is on her neck, biting on her skin and whispering in her ear as he asks and demands for her to come and she does, trembling and writing beneath him as he keeps pounding into her a few more times before he lets go.

Every muscle on his body tenses up and releases and he presses his face into her back and moans as he rides out his pleasure, feeling her walls squeeze him in.

Her legs give in under the weight of her pleasure and Harvey's body and she lets herself collapse into the mattress, drawing in labored breaths as much as she can with him crushing her. He keeps kissing her, her back and shoulders and the back of her neck, and she keeps not looking at him because she feels like crying.

"This was amazing."

She feels his warm breath and his grin on her skin as he says it and he sounds so happy and satisfied and she's back to feeling a mixture of used and adored.

This wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to be using him just as much, and maybe physically she is, with the way she made him fuck her tonight and the mindblowing orgasm he just delivered but emotionally… she knows she's always giving everything and not getting anything back and it's her own fault because this arrangement was not supposed to be about emotion.

He moves, giving her room to breathe as if he knew how choked up she feels, but keeps an arm around her body and his legs tangled with hers.

"Donna…"

Harvey rubs his chin on her shoulder, trying to coax her to turn around and look at him and, with the way his voice quietly calls her name, she can't deny him that so she turns.

His eyelids are heavy and he smiles at her with an expression that can't be described as anything other than blissful and she hopes to god she can keep the sting she currently feels from translating into full blown tears before she can find her way out of his bed.

His fingers tangle in her hair and when he draws himself closer to kiss her she pushes herself back, out of his reach.

She sits up, twisting her hair in a hasty knot as she looks around for something to cover herself with, but there's nothing. They hadn't even pulled the covers from the bed and her dress currently lies on his living room floor.

"What is it?" he asks, startled by her sudden distance.

"Hm? Nothing," she says, then moves up from his bed and out of the room to retrieve her dress and quickly cover herself, foregoing underwear.

She zips herself up and looks back to find Harvey sitting in bed, watching her. He frowns and waits for her to say something and has maybe just the faintest hint of hurt in his expression and for one fleeting second she imagines what it would feel like to slip out of that dress again, turn every light off, lie back in his arms and tell him, instead of Mark, that today she realized she would follow him wherever he goes for the rest of her life.

She figures he would probably kick her out of bed himself.

She walks back into the bedroom, but despite the glimmer of relief the move sparks in his chest that she's coming back to bed, she's just moving around to collect her panties, her bra, her shoes…

So he gets up, puts on his briefs and stops her before she leaves the bedroom a second time. He holds her by the crook of her elbow, while she holds her things in her hands and looks at just about everywhere but him.

"What happened?" His tone is low and raspy, but firm.

She forces out a smile and forces herself to look into his eyes, which is how she notices he's actually worried. "Nothing happened."

"Donna..."

"I mean it, Harvey. Thank you for the great sex, it was well worth the wait," she tries to reassure him.

"Why are you leaving?"

"What are you talking about? We always leave."

"Not this fast. Not before…" he stumbles.

This is not their usual. They may not ever spend the night together but they always _stay_. In each others arms.

He likes the way she lazyly kisses him after she comes and runs her fingers through his hair. He likes dozing off for a few minutes before starting it all over again and making her come until they're both too exhausted and one of them goes home. It's the moments that keep him sane for another year of waiting. And if he has to wait an entire year to have her again, he's damn sure he'll make the most of the one night he has her. Except now she wants to leave when he has barely begun to quench his year long thirst for her.

"I'm sorry, Harvey…" she says softly, taking pity on his concern. "Today has just been a lot with the, hm…"

Only then he remembers she had just broken up a six month long relationship.

"Oh."

"I guess I'm just tired and—"

"No— it's okay, I'm— Sorry."

"Don't be. It's fine."

It doesn't look like it's fine to him. He rubs his thumb on her arm a couple of times before releasing his hold on her.

It's a weird feeling to him, having her in his arms for one moment and completely forgetting she's not his in any of the other ones. So much so that it escaped his mind that she was actually someone else's up to a few hours ago and he still doesn't know what happened to make that relationship end and to have her here with him tonight.

At first he felt like he had just won the biggest hand of his gambling career when she showed up at his door, but now a bitter aftertaste at the back of his throat makes him wonder if she had just used him to get over someone else. If maybe she was thinking about another man while she was in bed with him.

"I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

Her voice brings him back from his thoughts and he focuses his eyes back on hers and nods.

They stand there for a moment, not knowing how to say goodbye, until they both probably realize, in spite of anything else, this is the last moment they are going to have for way too long, so he leans down and she meets him halfway, lips finding each other's in a series of soft kisses.

.

.

She forgot a book at his place. A wrapped, vintage edition of Shakespeare Sonnets that must've slipped out of her purse, so the next day he places it on her desk when she's not around, to avoid anything that could bring up the topic of the previous night.

When night time comes and he's packing up his office, he still doesn't know if Donna's leaving with him or not. He was too much of a coward to ask. And when Jessica comes in and tells him she told Hardman that if the next person they promote to junior partner isn't him, she's leaving; when she tells him he's the person she wants to be teammates with in the long run and wishes him good luck in case he still wants to leave, he knows he's making a huge mistake.

Just like Donna tried to make him see the day before.

And when Donna comes into his office to tell him Alex Williams had just called and that the move was a done deal, she takes one look at him and _she knows_. Even though he just looks at her and he swears to god he doesn't move a single muscle on his face, she knows he's not leaving anymore.

She cocks her head. "For the record, I would've gone with you," she tells him.

"For the record, I should have asked you first."

Donna smiles and shakes her head, her signature mixture of amused and annoyed, and leaves while he watches her through the glass.

.

.

It's only years later that he finds out what really happened that night.

It's only when the firm conducts a mock trial to try and save him.

It's only when they put Donna on the stand — when _she lets_ _them_ put her on the stand, taking another huge blow to protect him.

It's when Louis asks her in front of the entire firm if she loves him.

And asks why did her last boyfriend break up with her.

That's when he finds out Mark had asked her to choose between Harvey and him.

And she chose Harvey.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** This is a very, _very_ special chapter of this fic because it was written in collaboration with my best friend, brilliant writer, wonderful beta, kindest person around, Blue. I'd like to thank her so much for helping me with this and for every beautiful word she wrote. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as we enjoyed writing together.

We want to dedicate this one to Lila, Nour and Juliet who have been asking for a Belle (Lila trademarked the name hahaha) collab for so long and who are always so sweet to us.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

The second he finishes typing up the last motion he absolutely had to finish tonight, Harvey turns off his laptop and calls it a night. It doesn't matter that he has a pile of e-mails he has to reply to or that he really should revise the terms of the Kodatech acquisition if he doesn't want to look like a fool on his meeting tomorrow morning. He's leaving now so that his night with Donna can finally start.

They never really talk about where they're going on their once a year date night. (He wonders whether he should even call it a date.)

Usually, in the previous days one of them hints, in a both subtle and teasing way, that they have plans for the night and the other one very willingly goes along with it, knowing they'll just spend some time together shedding the mask of professional distance and then inevitably fall into each other's arms.

This year it had been her. Yesterday she was in his office waiting for him to sign some documents when she very casually said, "You know, it occurred to me today, we never had that threesome..."

He was so shocked his hand slipped and the T in Specter reached all the way to the middle of the page. He had done his best to push down all the images that conjured because he now very much knows he'd _never_ want to share and yet anything to do with her naked stir things inside, even if it was mad jealousy.

Her body was curved in the most sensual of ways, eyes wide and innocent even if her lips weren't. The slightest quirk in the corner of her mouth gave it away and she laughed unashamedly and he rolled his eyes in annoyance at her joking about this _very important_ matter on the important day.

She had another copy of the document on the ready for him to sign and he kind of loved that she timed this so he would need that. As she was leaving, she turned and looked at him over her shoulder, a teasing smirk now fully formed on her lips and her eyebrows raising when she said, "But I do have some ideas for us."

This had been far from subtle, but he caught himself grinning like a goddamn idiot when she left. He's not sure which of them enjoys it more, him for getting swept up in her sudden tease, or her for having the ability to cause it.

So as if he wasn't already looking forward enough for tonight, since then he also _really_ wants to know what kind of ideas about him and her together flow around that head of hers.

She's on a call when he walks up to her desk, his face all smirky and smug as he waits for her to hang up and he doesn't make any effort at all to wipe that grin off his face. He's _happy_. Happy and excited like he hasn't felt in a long time.

He has finally made senior partner. Has a dangerous new secret in the form of a fraudulent associate to keep life from getting boring. The Aston Martin was available when he called the car club. Closed a twenty million dollar deal this afternoon.

He's going to spend the night with Donna.

Life's just pretty great right now.

"Are you ready to go?" he asks when she finishes the call, his voice low and hoarse, but when she turns to face him it's clear there's something wrong.

She keeps the phone in one hand, hanging up the landline with a press of her fingers and her lips are parted but she doesn't immediately find the words.

"What is it?" he asks, worried.

She swallows and puts the phone down in its place before she says, "That was Jeremy Miller's secretary. Kodatech is dropping out of the deal."

"Shit. He'll want to go ahead with a hostile takeover."

"I know."

"How do you know that?"

"Because his secretary was calling to tell they're sending a carrier here right now with every single file they have on Kodatech for you to find a way to make them go along with the acquisition in tomorrow's meeting."

"What?!" Harvey barks at her. "They want me to come up with a way to force a twelve million dollar company to the ground in one night?"

The question is obviously rhetorical so Donna just tells him, "She said Jeremy's in another meeting and will call you to discuss this in about twenty minutes." Then she waits for Harvey to control his frustration and set a course of action.

And the truth is, as much as he paces around and huffs and thinks about punching goddamn Jeremy Miller, he knows this needs to be done tonight because if they show up at that meeting tomorrow without an ironclad strategy they'll lose this company.

Of course something like this had to happen tonight of all nights. Realistically, there isn't the slightest chance he can manage to get out of the office tonight. They're stuck here and they both know it.

"Where's Mike?" he asks in a huff.

"I'll call him."

Harvey walks back into the office, drops his weight on the chair and reopens his laptop with such force the thing almost breaks in half. He allows a wreckless daydream of saying fuck it to Jeremy Miller _and_ facing Jessica's wrath. He nearly groans when he mentally feels Donna's naked skin pressing into his and then his scowl deepens when he realizes he'll be replaying this for another year. Then he starts reading on the goddamn acquisition.

.

.

They're two hours, thirty-seven minutes into what has turned into an evening of tortured restraint. Harvey has a pile of about one-hundred and fifty case files in front of him, with only about ten even registering in his brain because he's too busy being distracted by the contour on her leg the flex of her heel makes when she's fidgeting, creating a shadowed path which he keeps trailing up with his eyes. Not to mention the multicolored pen that she occasionally places right between her lips in a way that makes his dick twitch.

The last of these things is more than distracting because even boring law shit isn't shutting it down. He rationalizes it's because it's something he's waited three-hundred-sixty-five days and two hours for, and the thought of it has been his go-to fantasy all along.

Of course he's fantasized about her since the day they met, but now that his fantasies escape to the realm of reality one night a year he became this ticking time bomb, waiting to go off. And it was supposed to go off _tonight_ but instead he's stuck here, frustrated, unable to concentrate and getting hornier by the minute.

At the very least he knows she's not doing that much better. Fidgeting around, shaking her heeled foot while she reads, changing the record they're listening to every few songs like she just really needs to get up and around and release some energy in any way she can. If they have to be sexually frustrated, at least they're doing it together.

The visual of her sashaying across the room is _not_ helping him, though.

They've planted themselves as far apart as possible on his office sofa. She reads each file carefully and has begun creating a paper barrier between them with each discarded page. She's fooling neither of them and frustrating both of them with the action, preventing him from fulfilling his crave to brush against her to indulge in his foolish belief that just a taste will cut the edge when in reality he'd succumb to his need for her if given the chance.

He's getting nowhere, reading the same page for the third time. He decides to distract himself with her. "You find anything yet?"

Only her eyes move up from the page, not daring to fluster herself with his playful eyes, smirky curved lips, or sharp jaw. "I'd have mentioned it if I did."

"It's been over two hours."

"Were you expecting this to be quick?"

He drops the file in his lap. _No, which is the current problem._

"The sooner you stop messing around the sooner we might find something." There's a slight scold in her tone, but she's silently amused by the fact the best closer in the city can't even manage more than a quarter of a shift when their night is hanging over them. It's…_relatable_. She chances a glance his way and his eyes are dark and fixed so deeply into hers her breath catches.

"Maybe we need a break." His tone is low as he makes the suggestion and she really doesn't need many more clues about where he's taking this.

"No way that's ending well."

"A break?" he plays dumb, even though he knows she isn't. And it's ending _very well,_ if he has anything to say about it.

"That's not what you're asking."

He pouts, bouncing his foot and thinking of another angle. He knows he sounds like a rookie associate that can't manage a few hours without whining about the work but she'd been minutes from within his reach. Now she's there, legs crossed, the slight crinkle between her brows, hair catching the New York moonlight as she gives up her planned night with him. And all he knows is _he_ _wants_ _her_.

"You do realize we really might be stuck here all night, right?"

"Which is exactly why I'm not sure why we're having this conversation."

He cocks his head at her, pressing his lips together, unamused by her pretense to be unaffected by their situation.

"We're not getting anything accomplished like this."

"And whose fault is that?"

The fact that they are losing their chance becomes more real at each turn of the clock, making him desperate and blunt. "You know you're not fooling anybody, right? I know you want this too."

Of course she does. He knows she does which is why the arrangement is in place. But she can't agree to what he's suggesting because they're stuck here, at their place of business, and this sure as hell doesn't belong on her resume.

"Is midnight the deadline for this arrangement?" he asks. "Because that's approaching quickly and we should hurry before we lose the chance." His tone is urgent, his body on alert like if she gives the okay he's ready to set them into action.

"We both know we've done that far past midnight," she tries to deflect, unsure of what he expects her to do and even less sure about what she's willing to do.

"In that case, could we postpone this to another date?"

"What– _No_."

"Then we really need to deal with this situation right now because I'm _not_ waiting another year."

"You look like you couldn't wait another day." She arches a brow, eyes darting to his lap.

"Donna," he warns, his skin growing flushed.

Suddenly the tension between them becomes ten times worse. Even in her feverish state she knows she can't just agree to being with him on any other day because that would open precedent. It's way too dangerous and their agreement is already risky enough as it is without them allowing themselves to simply be together whenever they feel like they need each other. But waiting another entire year? She really doesn't think she can make it.

She needs to put some distance between them to clear her thoughts or she might lose her mind and actually agree with what he's suggesting because, as insane as it, she really, _really_ needs him and it seems like that's the only way to make that happen tonight.

"Maybe we really should take a break," she says in a heavy sigh, her skin feeling hot and unsettled by the dizzying reality that she has no idea what to do here. The fact that they currently find themselves in a sort of now or never situation makes her want to throw all caution out the window.

She glances at her watch, trying to determine if there are still people at the firm or if it's late enough that everybody else might have already left. The way Harvey's gaze follows her around only aggravating her need.

She moves to change the record again.

Mildly nursing scotch, burying her nose in the files and distracting herself with becoming his disc jockey had been her plan to make it through the night, but it clearly didn't work. So she attempts to recenter her mind as she slips Miles Davis back into its sleeve and slips out one she doesn't remember hearing before, saxophone player Ronnie Adams, and places the needle gently at the rim. It pierces out into the room and the alcohol in her system seems to ripple from the vibration of the tone and make her feel heady as she moves to place the record back on the shelf.

His eyes are determinedly _not_ on his paperwork anymore and she tries to resist the urge to just climb into his lap. She's trying to remind herself what she's doing and all the reasons they shouldn't do this here when suddenly he's behind her and his fingertips warm her skin through the fabric on the waist of her dress and his hot breath is tickling just beside her cheek.

"The timing of this case was cruel." It comes out of his lips with both whine and grit.

She momentarily forgets whether Miles Davis goes in the M or D section when his nose inches back her hair and his lips are against her neck. "What you're doing is crueler," she points out.

"I can't help it. And you can't help responding," he says as she's angling her head back and over to give more room for his mouth.

"We can't do this here," she lamely protests, but her ass is pressing back and hoping to find his groin.

He grinds against it and he might as well have entered her for the noise that comes out of her lips. _He's so hard._

"I'm running out of time for my yearly window. I can't focus without this." He presses into her once more and then spins her around suddenly, so suddenly that all focus on keeping the record between her fingers completely fails and it slips out of the sleeve and impacts against the edge of the shelf.

"Oh my god!" She starts to kneel to pick it up from the place it settled on the floor but he tightens his arms around her waist to stop her.

"Leave it until after."

"After?" she checks but she knows what he's intending.

"I'm not waiting two years."

"What about Mike?" she asks, needing him to talk her out of her last fears.

"Thought we agreed I wouldn't be sharing you."

Donna slaps his arm and he presses his grin to her mouth.

Harvey had just hired his new associate and the new fraud kid had been practically sleeping at the firm trying to prove his worth so Donna knows even if it's the middle of the night, he's still there.

"I told him to read all of Kodatech's contracts over the last ten years. Trust me, he's not going to come barging in here anytime soon."

She has a barrage of what-ifs to counter with but his lips are firmly on hers and suddenly all the rest of the consequences and good judgment fleet away with his tongue erasing her thoughts.

They're alone. The cleaning crew has gone. Security is on the bottom floor. Her clit has been throbbing at each thought of any part of him between her legs for the past three hours.

Sex in the office it is.

God, she'd missed kissing him. There's just something about the way their lips fit and his tongue tastes that drives her absolutely insane. She could kiss him for hours on end but the reality here is that they'll only have a few minutes. She runs her hands over the muscles in his back while they shifted and flexed, yanking her closer, needing to consume every inch he can envelop.

His mouth is back on her neck, hot and possessive, hitching her breath and drawing her airy moans. He turns her body, pressing her into the shelf holding his record collection while he devours her neck. He's usually careful, but tonight, after holding off for longer than anticipated and being pressed for time, he will probably leave marks on her skin.

He pulls the zipper on her back enough to push her dress down below her breasts and she assists, freeing her arms from the straps even though this makes her feel way more exposed than she naively thought she would. For a second she worries about each one of the lights on at the buildings around them and whether they can see anything within Harvey's dark office, but then he's scooping out one of her breasts and dragging his mouth over her cleavage until his lips draw in her nipple and all rational thought is replaced by pleasure.

Her fingers weave through his hair as he sucks on her, his mouth leaving wet kisses all over her skin as he moves to give the same attention to her other breast and only when a moan escapes her lips she realizes she's pressing Harvey's head into her breasts and he is complying eagerly.

He moves up her body, running his tongue at the seam of her lips until she meets it with her own, tangling them together even before his lips meet hers. He presses his body firmly into hers, kissing her deeply, both his hands sliding to her ass and pulling her to him and she feels more than hears the groan emanating from him.

Harvey starts bunching up her dress, pulling on the fabric at the sides of her body and running his hands over the soft skin of her thighs. She quickly manages to undo the buttons on his shirt, hastily pulling it out of his pants and pushing the fabric over his shoulders until it falls to the floor.

She starts at the buckle of his pants but he stops her with a press of his hands. "Wait."

Suddenly he's dropping down, fingers slipping in the hem of her panties and his fingertips dragging them down the edge of her thighs until he slips them off her feet. He inches closer, outer edge of his hands pressing into her inner thighs and demanding them apart.

She grows shaky as she shifts, already uncertain on her feet just from the view between her legs. A breath comes out in a pant. "H-Harvey."

He hums in response.

"How am I supposed to—"

"Grab on to something behind you."

And before her head fully catches up with what he wants he's hooking a thigh, lifting it high on his arm almost to his shoulder and she's grappling for any edges on the shelf behind her she can find, her knuckles fully at work.

His opposite hand parts her, and then his lips begin to tease her clit. Just enough so she feels the suction with each kiss of his mouth on her center but cruelly pulling away, only to come back again. The heat pools between her legs, liquid and aching for any more friction or fulfillment she can get. Her body is begging her to be lewd in its search for his mouth. Pinned against his records, dress bunched at her waist with her naked breasts heaving, Harvey shirtless and mouth attaching to her center as she's barely able to keep herself from bending over the paper-strewn sofa and begging to be fucked.

Then, he's done teasing. He licks the length of her slit, once, twice, thoroughly tasting and then swirling his tongue around her clit. He sucks it into his mouth, gently, while his tongue strums a rhythm. She tangles her fingers in his hair, pulling him in for more. His head tilts back enough so his eyes connect with hers as he increases suction, tightening his hold around her left thigh to steady her for the change.

She stares down at him, subservient to her needs, her practically perching on his face while he laps and sucks her to full pleasure. She's using a free hand to pinch and roll a nipple, feeling the vibration of his groan while she helps with pleasuring herself, panting and wiggling her hips because she needs him inside her.

He doesn't fully give her what she's seeking, instead using his free hand to press fingers at her opening, and suddenly she's stretched, fingers sinking easily inside from how wet she'd become but not tampering the soreness of the intrusion. He's not gentle working them inside her. Thank god there's really no one around because if the sight of them together like this wouldn't have given them away, the sounds she's making surely would.

Pressure builds in her belly, a sinking tug telling her she's growing close. Her legs begin to tense, and his fingers hit her front wall on each inward motion. It forces her clit against his sucking mouth and it's only moments before she's contracting around his fingers, her body completely surrendering itself to his face slowing to light licks and kisses while the throb slows and lets the grasp inside her come gently back down.

Leaving wet kisses on her inner thigh, he unhooks it from his arm and places her unsteady heel on the ground. He climbs his way up her body, mouth dragging on her dewy skin as her chest heaves and she struggles to remain upright. He grips the fabric of the dress bunched at her middle to anchor himself up, which doesn't help with her balance but works perfectly for him as she falls forward into his arms.

He bites on her bottom lip, pulling it slowly, a smirk on his lips from the satisfaction of seeing her like this, breathless, satisfied, with little control over her limbs. And all because of him.

She kisses him, letting her hands trail down to finally unbuckle his pants and this time he lets her, closing his eyes and enjoying her kiss and the feel of her fingers wrapping around his erection inside his briefs. She squeezes and strokes him, but when he pushes his hips forward, pressing into her hand, she has the mercy of pushing his pants down, freeing him from his constraint.

His hand travels up and down between her neck and her breasts, while the other keeps a firm hold on the back of her neck, binding her mouth to his as he pumps into her fist. When he doesn't think he can take this anymore, he runs both hands down her body, settling on her hips and pulling her into him, his thigh moving between her legs to coax them open.

Donna folds her arms around his neck, bracing herself for what comes next, but she's still caught by surprise when Harvey buckles his knees, hands traveling down the backs of her thighs and hooking behind her knees, pulling her up as she wraps her legs around him on instinct.

There's a moment of immobility as he fixes his eyes on hers. She's noticed he likes doing this, staring at her as he enters her and right before. His mouth curves softly and it's like it's his favorite moment and he wants to savour it, or like this is monumental and he needs a moment to prepare. She's not quite sure. Maybe it's just that he likes to watch her reaction, her mouth opening in a moan as he stretches her, pushing in deeper and deeper until their bodies join completely. Then he closes his eyes and kisses her just before he starts moving.

When he starts fucking into her, _really_ fucking into her, it becomes clear this is the most impractical place they could possibly have chosen to do this. He adjusts, pressing her firmly against one of the spots where the shelf divides so the wood is digging into her back each time he drives inside her. She slips down just a bit every time he withdraws, then she's pinned between him and albums she knows are worth more to him than anything in this office. Even if he doesn't seem to mind he's risking more crashing into the ground with how hard he's jostling the shelves.

She's gripping around his shoulders for extra safety, her upper body smashed up tightly against his. It's easy to say this is to brace for safety but she admits deep inside it feels good to cling to him after being separated for so long. Wrapping herself up around his strength, taken closer and closer to the edge with every thrust. Her lips find open skin along his shoulder and neck, tasting the saltiness of his skin from the long day while she can feel the heat of his breath burying into her hair just below her ear.

Every so often he bounces her up to try and adjust them again. At some point he slows, groaning in frustration and firmly holds her left leg in place, while coaxing her right leg to slip down until her foot braces on the sofa back behind them. The change in angle feels more secure at first but does nothing for her leg wrapped around him that's beginning to shake from trying to keep in place.

She almost starts to wriggle that one free too until the first full slam deep inside hits from the small bit of freedom this allows. Her fingernails dig into his skin, pressing all limbs as tightly as they can be pressed to will her muscles to last until the end. Her head falls back and his mouth quickly responds by taking advantage of her revealed neck, attaching itself, open and hot and sucking perfectly in all her favorite points.

He loves that she's so warm, so perfect. The sounds she's making are far better than any of the ones from the records he's fucking her against. The way she's clinging to him, wrapping around his dick and around any part of him she can manage is driving him mad. She's got to be so close and he doesn't know how much longer he can physically manage this except he knows that this ending means he's going to long for it all the longer, and that alone drives him to draw this out even if it means they're tempting consequence by the act to begin with.

"Oh god. Harvey," she whines out to him, and they both know she's close and pull apart enough to sear the memory of each other. He kisses her as he grinds himself against her, trying to create the last bit of friction she needs since the rest of him is concentrated on not letting her drop to the ground and only letting her fall surrounded by him. She's moaning, breathy and too loud and his mouth covers hers to muffle them.

She readjusts her arms above his shoulders, other leg falling to the sofa too as the ripples begin to spread. They rush, sending bolts of pleasure through her limbs and throbbing around him. She's completely full from this, inside and out, him still slamming his hips into her now tender pussy. And it's this way, clinging onto Harvey until her nails make indents on his skin, legs spread around him as he squeezes her flesh, being fucked and kissed into his record collection, that she succumbs, mind going numb with pleasure.

She's moaning his name into his mouth, his lips failing on keeping their sounds muffled when he can't contain his groans anymore. She's writhing in his arms, completely his, and as much as he wishes they could stay like this forever, his body takes over his mind and he loses all control, emptying himself inside of her until he's completely spent.

He pants heavily into her neck and when some oxygen makes its way back into his head he remembers to put her down, helping her place unsteady heels on the ground, but keeping his body firmly pressed into her, still inside of her.

Donna kisses a spot just below his ear. Inhales the scent on the crook of his neck and drags her parted lips over his cheek to find lips, kissing him slow and thorough.

He has both arms wrapped around her waist, lost in her taste, and can't deny his disappointment when her hands gently press over his shoulders and she parts her lips from his.

"We should probably…" she trails out.

He inches forward one last time, pressing his lips to hers for one lingering second, before he pulls away and steps back.

He quickly crouches, tugs his pants up and then assists Donna by helping pull the hem of her dress down over her legs and closing her zipper when she turns her back to him, after having adjusted her bra and the straps of her dress.

"I can't believe we did this," she says, with an amused tug on the corner of her lips.

He smirks, picking up his shirt from the floor and buttoning it up. Unable to contain the urge, Donna reaches for him, adjusting and smoothing his collar in place while he does the last couple of buttons. When she looks back at his face, she realizes he'd been watching her, something so fond and warm in his eyes.

There's barely a breath between then. If she reaches forward just the slightest she could kiss him again and something deep inside tells her if she just tilted her chin upwards he would lean in and take her lips. Instead she stays. Both hands on his chest, heart hammering hard inside her own, both of them suspended in the moment.

Harvey's lips part and his eyebrows draw together the tiniest bit, the kind expression on his face only she would spot. Then Mike's voice by the door startles them both.

Harvey hastily takes a step back, bumping against the back of the couch while Donna sinks to the floor to retrieve the record currently lying to their feet and spots panties which she quickly shoves under his couch.

Luckily, when Mike came in he had his nose buried on the document he was quoting so he didn't notice both of them jumping out of their skin. He does notice Harvey's messed up hair and hard expression and Donna crouched down on the floor.

"What… are you guys doing?" he asks, elongating his question as he frowns at them, eyes jumping from one to the other.

"Record fell," Donna says lightly and only them he notices her picking up a disc and its sleeve from the floor before she straightens to her feet.

"Oh." Mike says, satisfied with the answer and so eager to get back to what he had been saying Harvey and Donna are both sure he didn't notice anything weird. "So, two years ago Kodatech—"

"Oh shit!" Donna interrupts him.

"What?"

She's eyeing the record on her hands and then looks at Harvey saying, "It scratched."

Harvey takes a closer look, spotting the indented line right at the edge where the disc had impacted against the shelf.

She looks at him with big and worried eyes because she knows it's one of his favorites and it's a rare edition of the album. He's clearly not happy about it, but he shrugs, takes both the record and its sleeve from her hands and puts it in place on the shelf.

"So. As I was saying," Mike starts one more time, now moving to sit on the couch. "Two years ago Kodatech made a deal with an investment bank…"

He goes on explaining what he had found, but before Donna can move to follow him, Harvey places his hand on her waist, keeping her still. She looks back at him inquisitively, looking back to Mike in worry when he brings his mouth to her ear and murmurs, "It was worth it."

She smiles and shakes her head at the boyish, proud grin on his face and then they go back to work.

The sun is nearly rising when they finally finish everything up. Donna had left a couple hours before and Mike's in the bullpen typing up a motion when Harvey crouches under the couch to retrieve her panties. He places them in her desk drawer before he leaves to shower and change for his meeting, smirking at both the thought of the look on her face when she finds it tomorrow and the fact that she went home in his car without them.

.

.

It becomes his favorite inside joke, teasing her about having scratched his Miles Davis because she can't dispute him without bringing up what happened. So he teases her and challenges her and smirks at the look on her face every time he says something about it, which sometimes lean more towards _"shut up, Harvey" _and others it's just pretty obvious she's fondly remembering that night in his office and how nice it would be if they could do it again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Harvey hates this merger, Mike has recently found out he is plotting against Jessica to take managing partnership from her, they're up to their necks with the Hessington trial... And still, despite all evidence to the contrary, Harvey seems to be in a particularly good mood.

That is something Mike only notices in brief off moments between one legal maneuver and another, but undeniably there. Something present in Harvey's more willing smirk at every lame joke Mike cracks – he has even started to overdo it, increasing the amount and decreasing the quality of his amusing comments, encouraged by Harvey's good mood, but also curious to see how much he can push the dude before he barks at him. So far, it hasn't happened yet. He's even determined to ask for a day off after they close this case, if for nothing else just because Harvey Specter being in such high spirits is not an opportunity one can simply let slide.

That afternoon Mike enters the men's restroom and finds Harvey there, casually leaning against the sink and talking on his cellphone.

"So the place is free on the 20th?" he says and then shoots Mike an annoyed glance at the interruption, straightening on his feet. "I'll only be coming at night. Great, man. Thank you!"

He hangs up and reinforces his gaze at his associate, who has decided to just stand there lurking at him in amusement.

"You take your calls in the bathroom now? Are you having such a hard time paying the bills that you're forced into this kind of overtime?"

"Did you come in here just to bother me or do you actually need to go?" Harvey deflects, nodding in the direction of the urinal.

"You know I always make time for you," Mike mocks and when Harvey says nothing else he adds, curiosity picked by what he had overheard. "Are you planning a trip?"

"Are you planning on minding your own business?" Harvey says raising his brows at him, but there's no bite. If anything there's humor in his tight lips. Then he decides to generously inform, "If you must know, yes. Just a little getaway, but it's not for a few weeks."

Mike _mustn't _know. He had already moved to the corner to empty his bladder thinking Harvey would just ignore him and leave. He's actually surprised Harvey volunteered the information. That good mood really must run deeper than he realized. "Where are you going?"

"Hamptons. A friend of mine has this great place I'm borrowing."

Mike's eyebrows shoot skyhigh as he turns over his shoulder to look at Harvey. Who will apparently be taking a weekend off. At the beach. He almost misses his aim.

He wants _so bad_ to ask which Miss from which State or catalogue model Harvey is taking with him, but before he can swallow his shock and zip himself up, his boss is already moving out of the bathroom.

Harvey turns by the door, calling his attention. "Hey. Don't go babbling around about this to anyone," he says firmly and Mike gives him a nod.

Harvey walks away shaking his head in light annoyance. He can't talk in his office without his secretary overhearing, he can't talk in the bathroom without his nosy associate intruding… can't a guy have some privacy in his own goddamn firm?

Despite that, a lazy contentment settles in his features as he sits back in his office. Teddy's place at the Hamptons is great. He's sure Donna is gonna love it.

He's still not sure if she will consider this a breach in their agreement. He has a whole mental presentation with numerous bullet points to argue the case that this does not go against the rules, but the woman is stubborn.

Yes, his plan does entail spending the night there and although they had agreed that spending nights together was not a wise move, it is not really a specific provision of the agreement. They _can _stay if they want to.

And yes, he does plan on spending the next day together at the beach, but their agreement says they're only allowed one _night_ a year, there's nothing that forbids them from enjoying each other's company during the following day.

Finally all that money Jessica had put into getting him through Harvard Law is amounting to something worth it, he thinks as he inwardly congratulates himself on his debating abilities.

It would be pretty awesome if they could stay the rest of the weekend too, but that is something he hasn't yet found a way to argue around because it would mean spending at least one more night together which would definitely be considered a breach in their agreement. He huffs thinking about Donna and all her goddamn rules she's so strict about. They would already be there, would it be so wrong to stay a little while longer together?

He misses her. She's currently seated fifteen feet away from him, he can see her lips move as she talks into the phone and makes a note on his calendar, but he misses her. It seems that the years are going by slower, like life's too fucking long, and everytime he leaves her bed it almost rips off a part of him knowing he won't be back there for another twelve excruciatingly long months.

He used to recover faster. He would lose control over his gazes and his thoughts for a few weeks after they'd had sex, but then he would go back to normal. Back to seeing her as his secretary and his partner, his compass and his friend who just happened to be too attractive for his own good. He didn't use to dwell all the time on the fact that he knows exactly what her mouth tastes like or the fact that she shivers every time he runs his tongue around the shell of her ear or the warmth that takes over the entire expanse of his skin when she delicately runs her fingernails on the back of his neck.

Now this kind of thought attacks him without any notice when it damn well pleases and the closer it gets to the set date of their agreement the worse it is.

"What's gotten into you?" her voice startles him. He didn't notice her going into the office.

"What?"

"You've been staring at that piece of paper for the past ten minutes."

"Just thinking," he brushes her off.

"Hm. If you don't need anything else, I'm packing up for the night."

He doesn't, but she usually doesn't leave until he does. His eyebrows shoot up with interest, in contrast with the something that drops in his stomach. "Do you have plans?" he asks in the most casual tone.

"I'm going to the Theater," she tells him. "MacBeth."

"Thought you'd seen that already."

He notices her eyes widen the tiniest bit, like she's startled and he doesn't get it. Was he not supposed to know that she's a big theater geek who would go see the same play twice in two weeks?

She quickly smiles. "What can I say. Daniel Day-Lewis in a kilt." She shrugs and he chuckles as she turns away and leaves.

.

.

A few days later he walks into his office to find Donna seated on his couch. Legs crossed, gentle smile on her face, a picture of casualty although something about her stiff posture, how she's leaning forward or how she propped her hair to drape over one shoulder hints that she's not that comfortable, but rather staged herself to look like she is. He knows her enough to notice that much.

"Make yourself at home," he says lightly as he comes in.

"I wanted to talk to you in here," Donna tells him and he moves to the armchair nearer to her.

"Is this about–" he boldly starts to ask because the date they spend the entire year waiting for is finally approaching and if she's here wanting to talk to him in private maybe she wants to talk about her plans for the day, maybe she's been looking forward to it as much as him.

"No, no…" she interrupts his question lightly, shaking her head.

"You don't even know what I was gonna say."

He's right in front of her now, looking down at her as she emphatically tilts her head to the side and looks him up, not needing to say a word to call him an idiot because _of course she does_.

It makes him smile. He loves it when she does that. He tilts his head too, mirroring her movement in a fond but unspoken communication before he takes a seat.

"How did it go with Gianopolous?" she says and that's really not what he was expecting this to be about.

"Well," he answers. "He's not a pushover, but I think we have a good plan."

"So it went well?"

"Yeah, it went well," he says. "And since when are you**–**"

"I'm sleeping with Stephen."

She says it quick and suddenly like a slap in the face, though it feels more like a kick to his chest because something crashes inside him. His body tenses and his linked fingers press so hard into one another they might pop out of their sockets. He looks away from her and nods his head, getting some air back into his shattered lungs and swallowing hard to keep his voice cool even though he wants to grab the coffee table right in front of him and toss it through a window. "I can see that."

"You can see that?" Donna sounds confused. "That's all you have to say?"

"Do you want me to say more?"

"Hm**–** I… It depends on what you would say."

He shakes his head slightly, feeling lost and unable to stop fidgeting. "I'd say, when?"

"Three days ago."

_Three days ago_. The day she told him she was going to the theater. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"I was going to, but you got so upset when you thought I was working for him."

"Because you work for me."

He is very aware of how he deflects his eyes from her before each one of his answers all the while hers are boring into him, but he simply can't control himself. It's an involuntary response to the things she's telling him, his millisecond to take the hit and school his features before he looks back into her eyes and lies his heart out.

"Well, I'm not working for him," she says as if that solves everything.

"Good," he replies as if it really does.

She pauses and he notices as she takes a steadying breath.

"So you're not upset?"

"No," he says. "What you're doing with him is personal."

"And this isn't?"

He doesn't get what the fuck she wants him to say. "Donna, I don't wanna make this a thing."

"I don't either. I just wanna make sure that it doesn't become a thing," she quickly explains.

"It won't, as long as you don't let that affect this." He doesn't even know what he's saying anymore. Fucking hell. He's already more than affected.

"Okay." She nods affirmatively looking so intensely into his eyes he's scared she might be reading through his bullshit.

.

.

His hand hurts like hell. That last hit right into Huntley's jaw before he threw the son of a bitch into the mirror is really collecting its price, but he can move his fingers, so at least it's not broken.

Donna gently dabs a cotton ball into his bruised lips and he winces.

"Tell me he looks worse."

"He does."

"Are you hurt?" she asks. Concern clear in her voice.

"No, I'm fine."

He's not. He might not need a bandage so his answer is truthful enough to make her discard the pack of gauze into the table, but as he takes a swing of scotch the reality that he's anything _but_ fine doesn't escape him.

They had a murderer among them in the firm and he fooled everybody. Stephen Huntley infiltrated himself into his case, watching someone else be prosecuted for a crime he committed, sabotaging the case to cover his tracks and he almost succeeded. And while all that had been going on, the criminal had been sleeping with Donna. That's what hits harder.

The look on her face when they found out... Her eyes wet and red and _she apologized_. She apologized as if she had any fault in what happened. It was the second he lost his shit, darted out of his office and beat the shit out of Stephen Huntley.

"Please tell me you didn't do this because of me," she says.

"It was a fight, Donna, not a duel," the answer was readily out of his mouth as he frowned, leaving her with no doubt that his dismissal was truthful.

He didn't beat Stephen because of her. He beat him because he had already promised he would if Stephen intruded in his case again. He did it because he lied to all of them. He did it because he was letting someone else take the blame for his crime. He did it because he is a murder…

He did it because he hurt Donna.

He could lie to her, but he couldn't lie to himself about this one thing, the sharp pain on his knuckles and the anger that commanded his fist into Huntley's face not allowing him to deflect reality.

"How could I not have..." she shakes her head and buries her face in her hand, voice barely there, clearly anguished.

"Listen to me," he promptly stops her train of thoughts, not wanting her to dwell on that. "Stephen betrayed us all."

"No, you don't understand, Harvey." She shakes her head and he notices a shiver run through her. "I was _with_ him." For some reason the blunt statement digs at him as if he wasn't already aware of the fact. But it's clear it hurts her too, as she shivers once more and gets to her feet, unable to keep still, her tone getting aggravated. "And he was capable of something like that and I didn't even see it. You know, I'm supposed to–"

"Donna!" he stands and raises his voice, eager to make her stop. When she sighs heavily he simply tells her, "It's okay."

"Just tell me you're gonna make him pay."

"He'll pay," he promises.

He moves to his bar cart, pouring her a drink. She had poured him one when he came back to his office all beaten up, but up until now she is completely sober and he thinks she needs some alcohol to numb her thoughts.

He extends the drink to her from a distance and she hesitates by the door but eventually walks back in his direction, taking the glass from his hand and tasting the dryness of the liquid. Harvey sits back on the couch and she follows along, sinking herself in the nearest armchair.

They sit in silence, drinking together in the dark office. He chances the occasional glance in her direction, but she seems intent on quietly nursing her drink.

He knew Huntley had hurt her, of course, but he didn't really get how much until now. He should've known, though. Because with Donna being Donna, of course she would feel responsible and be completely blind to the fact that she was a victim.

This ability she has, to read people, to infiltrate herself in their thoughts, is such an integral part of who she is. The fact that she could be so wrong about someone must tear at her, he realizes, it defies her self worth, it defies the self knowledge of a woman who has spent her life priding herself on knowing people better than they knew themselves.

He gets that now, after watching her let out a bit of her inner turmoil in a way she so rarely does. But her suffering, or just this messed up situation, or the way she cried when Mike told them what he had found out… all of that makes Harvey wonder if she was taking the hit so hard because she was falling for Stephen.

They hadn't had much time together, not even two weeks, but it was possible. She had been so happy lately and he saw them together the other night in that restaurant, seated together on the piano bench as Stephen played for her. Harvey watched her naked back when she leaned forward and kissed Stephen. And lingered. He was torn between turning his back and leaving or attempting to throw the damn piano through the nearest window, Stephen along with it. But he just clenched his jaw, biting hard, swallowing his anger and going to talk to Stephen like he meant to.

He had been honest enough to tell Donna her being with Stephen bothered him and she was honest when she said she had to live her life so he made the monumental effort of letting her, no matter how much it killed him. No matter if he didn't understand why it did.

Now he thinks it's possible that she had more feelings for Stephen than he had let himself believe before. After all, she had chosen to break her rule for him, when she never did for Harvey. She would be with him everyday when she would only give Harvey one night.

He clenches his fists at his sides, pushing that thought away. He can't ask that of her, he can't expect that from her, because _he doesn't want to be with her_. He wants her to be happy and of course he was bothered she was involved with Stephen, the guy is a criminal. He didn't know that at the time but…

His own thoughts trick him and he works on clearing his mind.

He wants her to be happy with someone who deserves her. She just hadn't found anyone who did yet and _that's_ why all her boyfriends always bother him. That's all there is to it. _It doesn't mean he_**–**

"I just wish none of this had happened." Donna's voice interrupts his internal musing and for a second he thinks _thank god_ for that because he was losing control of his thoughts, his mind driving him to places he didn't dare to go. "Well, the murders, obviously," she says with an unamused kind of laugh escaping her nostrils and he recognizes a bit of dark humor in the comment. "But also me being involved with him."

He fixes her with an intense gaze but doesn't say anything because the only words on the tip of his tongue are _'yeah, i wish you had never been involved with him too' _and_ 'why were you'._

"I guess, I just…" She sighs and he really hopes she finishes her thoughts because hearing her say anything diminishing her involvement with Stephen is the only thing that could give him hope of getting some sleep tonight. "He charmed me and at first I said no but then I convinced myself it was okay to let myself get involved because he was only here for a few weeks and then he would be back to London, you know?"

"So you broke your rule." The words escape Harvey's mouth before he can stop himself and he can only hope it didn't sound like an accusation, even though _it was_, because she is already feeling pretty miserable and the last thing he would want is to make her feel worse.

He had already asked her about changing her rule the other day at the dinner so he doesn't really expect to hear further clarification from her. He's surprised when she says, "See, that's the thing. I didn't think that's what I was doing. The rule didn't really apply to him."

"Why not?" he asks, already indignant that Stephen Huntley could breeze through her goddamn rule.

"Because, like I said, we didn't really work together. He's in London, it's practically another firm."

"Except it's not," he firmly asserts, anger clear in his tone, and then immediately chastises himself, closing his eyes, readying himself to either apologize or to be met with her own anger, but when he opens it back, all he sees is Donna, deflated and miserable. He tries to mend it, "Look…"

"I guess you're right," she says, interrupting whatever excuse he was about to formulate. "But the thing is, Harvey…" she pauses and stares deeply into his eyes as if pondering if she should really say what she's thinking. He sits there, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, nursing his half empty glass of scotch and he realizes he's both physically and metaphorically on the edge of his seat waiting for her next words. "I had that rule for you, not for anyone else. And we act like our agreement doesn't go against it, but to be honest with you, I'm not so sure."

His eyes widen and he doesn't dare move a single muscle. "What do you mean you had that rule just for me?"

She shakes her head. "I let myself get involved with him and look at the mess I made and I didn't even think I was really going against my rule," she says in a weak voice and he wants to tell her she had no part in that mess but more than anything he wants her to keep talking and explain _what did she mean she had that rule just for him?,_ but then she says, "Maybe I should be more strict about my own rules."

That startles Harvey enough to make him abandon his previous urgent questioning in favor of a hoarse, _"What?"_

Donna breathes in deeply and the way she looks at him, with her eyes glassy and sorrowful, he knows this can't be good. "Harvey, what are we doing? This once a year thing… this is destined to become a mess–"

"What–Donna. _No._" He says firmly, voice getting louder without him realizing, denying her words with everything in him. He wants to do _anything_ to stop where this is going but he's paralyzed.

"Harvey, I don't think we should keep doing this." She says the words in such a quiet voice he thinks she can probably hear the crack inside his chest when they hit him.

"You think I'm gonna go around and kill a bunch of people and lie to you about it if we have sex?"

Her lips part soundlessly, taking the hit of his words, and he notices her eyes getting more watery. "No, I think, eventually, this can all blow up in our faces and what's happening just proves that getting in bed with someone you work with can stir a whole bunch of shit."

"So you can wave your rule to a murderer, but to me you reinforce it as if it was the goddamn First Amendment?!"

In the far back of his mind he knows his words must be hurting her, but his anger blinds him to her feelings, even when a tear runs down her face, one she wipes away with her fingers so quickly he could have imagined it.

"See, we're already fighting over this!" she cries out. "And the longer we drag this out, the bigger mess we make."

"Donna!"

"I can't risk it, Harvey. I was stupid enough to agree to this and–"

"It was your idea! Are you trying to put it all on me now?"

"Harvey, no," she pleads, her eyes glistening wet and desperate to make him calm down and understand what she's saying because it's the hardest decision she's ever made and she probably doesn't have the strength to convince him if he fights her. "We both wanted it and we both agreed to it, but I just now realize that this really could ruin everything we have."

"How?!"

"I don't know how! But it also never crossed my mind that Stephen was a murderer and look how that turned out. Not only for me and him, but for me and you. Because you were bothered and it affected our relationship."

"I already apologized about that!" he huffs out, pissed that she would use that against him now.

"I know you did. But I can't risk it, Harvey. Can't you understand that?"

"No, Donna. Actually, I can't."

"Well, this just proves my point. Because if you're so mad about ending it now, if it's coming between us now, how do you think you would feel about it further along the way? Or did you think we could just keep this agreement going forever?"

He hadn't thought so far along in the future. He's not that type of person. He thinks about the present and presently the thought of ending his agreement with Donna, of never having her in his arms again, is fucking killing him.

He had it all planned out. A whole weekend just for them at the beach. They would swim past the waves, he would take her in his arms and she would wrap her legs around his waist and kiss him, letting him taste the salt of the sea directly from her lips. They would lie in the sun together, or more realistically, she would hide in the shade and he would laugh at her while he smeared sunscreen down her back, pulling on her bikini string just to tease her, and she would laugh and slap him off. And then he would take her inside and bury himself inside of her and feel everything he was so desperate to feel.

But now she wants to end it.

"You know what, Donna? If you wanna end this, then just end it."

Later he would beat himself up about his inability to fight for her. He accepted defeat and gave in to her terms exactly like he had done years ago when she first asked him to put her out of his mind. And between his fifth and sixth glass of scotch he would realize fighting for her would mean that she was _his_ to fight for and he could never see Donna as his, not in that way, because if she was, he would eventually and inevitably lose her.

If she wasn't his he could never lose her, but he also could never fight for her.

She sounds so small and defeated when she says, "I'm just… trying to protect us, Harvey."

He feels her gaze on him, scorching his skin, but he can't look at her, tortured by the fact that she clearly doesn't feel for him the same way he feels about her because he would _never_ give her up like she's giving him up, even if he only had her one night a year.

"I think I better go home," she says since Harvey apparently put an end to the conversation. He nods but still doesn't meet her gaze. "Are you sure your hand is okay?"

He glances at his red and swollen knuckles. "Fine," he says dismissively.

"Harvey." Donna's fingers gently wrap around his wrist and the contact of her warm skin on his forces his eyes into hers. "I'm sorry about all of this. And I'm sorry about… us. I just think… This made me realize I'm risking too much. Our agreement makes everything so much more complicated and I think we were fooling ourselves thinking we could keep this going and have no consequences. There are always consequences. Besides, we said we would do this to make it easier to be away when we stopped sleeping together and it isn't working. It's getting harder."

That much at least he can agree with. It's getting hard as hell to be away from her.

He feels differently about her now than he did when they first started their agreement. Before he was just thinking he was desperate to have her again. Now she has become such an intrinsic part of him he feels he can't ever be him without her. He's not sure that's any better.

He looks at her and although he thinks she can read on his face how unwilling he is to agree with her all he says is, "Goodnight, Donna." And for all her certainty in putting an end to their agreement it sure takes her a long time to get up from his couch and leave. Leave him.

He doesn't even look at her. Just listens to the echoes of her heels around his office as she walks away.

.

.

The next day she's at the courthouse asking him to put Stephen on the stand and he does, even though he knows he really shouldn't because this isn't his trial, it's Ava's, but he does because she asked and even after it blows up in his face he doesn't regret it because he can't have her thinking he would let what Stephen did slide through the cracks. That would break her even more.

.

.

He's in a shitty mood and the reality of the fact is that it's her fault. Stephen and the trial and none of that mess are her fault, but his sullen mood is, entirely, and that's something he's forced to admit after the trial is over. They cleared Ava Hessington, he managed to get the firm out of the merger with Darby International and Jessica has forgiven him for betraying her so, by all accounts, he's won in every aspect. He should be ecstatic. And yet, he's not.

He toasts with Jessica and rolls his eyes at Mike's attempted high five then tells him to go celebrate with Rachel, but it doesn't really feel like a win.

He walks out of the building feeling a sting of melancholia, looking forward to getting home to his empty apartment when he finds Donna on the sidewalk, New York evening lights shining around her, night wind blowing her hair, pale arms exposed to the chill as she waits for him there beside the car.

"Harvey," she greets when he approaches.

"Donna. How did it go?" he asks about Stephen's arrest, which she had insisted on being present for. What he really wants to know is how she is.

"As well as it could." Which is her way of telling him she'll be okay.

He nods, relieved that she seems to be handling the situation, like she handles everything else. He, on the other hand, needs some distance because this is one thing she can't help _him_ handle.

"Harvey," she calls again when he's about to enter the car. "Thank you," she says, something both sweet and solid to her tone and suddenly getting inside that car seems like the most claustrophobic thought that has ever crossed his mind.

"Why don't you take the car? Feel walking tonight." It's all he says, as he walks into the night.

So that was it. He has lost what little piece he had of her. He has no idea how he'll be able to get over the fact that he'll never be with her again and it occurs to him that the only reason why he's not completely losing his mind over this is the fact that she'll be there tomorrow, right outside his office, like she's been for the last several years. That kind of makes up for it.

Agreeing to not be with her again and putting her out of his mind; agreeing to her insane idea of being together once a year; agreeing to keep her at arm's length – it had all assured she would be there tomorrow and that has always been enough to keep him sane.

At the end of the day, he needs her there in any capacity he can have her. At the end of the day, he wants her there. And he can twist and turn in his bed all night long completely unable to understand this urge to keep her close and to protect her and to see her happy but it's very much real and very much there so when he wakes up the next morning he decides to give in to it, regardless of everything that's happened. So he takes her to breakfast just to see her smile.

.

.

A couple of days later, Mike shows up looking for Harvey, but he's not there, so Mike ends up telling her he had asked Rachel to move in with him, but of course Donna already knew that.

He sits on her chair, expelling a deep sigh. "Donna, you should've seen her face when I asked her. She was so happy."

"I'm sure she was, it was very romantic."

"How could she be so happy and then just not wanna do it?"

"Who says she doesn't wanna do it?"

He leans back, feeling a little defeated. "I told her to take her time, but I didn't think she'd need it."

"Why wouldn't she need it?" She sits on the desk near Mike. "Just because you made some romantic gestures doesn't mean that all reason goes out the window."

"I've had a pit in my stomach since last night. I need to do something."

"You need to look in the mirror," Donna tells him.

"What?"

She's gentle, but earnest, even if the subject feels uncomfortably personal given her current situation. "I just jumped into a relationship with a man who, it turns out, was pretending to be something he wasn't. Rachel already knows that you're pretending to be something you're not. All you need to do is just give her time to figure it all out."

"What if she says no?"

"Then she says no. But pushing her isn't gonna stop that from happening."

He takes it in, decides to follow her advice and give Rachel some space, because Donna's right. Given his secret, agreeing to take such a huge step in their relationship is a lot for Rachel to process. He breathes in, forcing himself to clear his mind and change the subject. "So. Any gossip on Harvey's weekend?"

"Hm?" Donna asks distractedly, moving to organize some folders in a drawer.

"His weekend at the Hamptons. I was afraid he wouldn't go anymore with that whole Stephen mess but since we put him behind bars… He's going, right?"

Donna freezes in place. It's the strangest feeling not knowing something about Harvey's life and she knows if she lets on to Mike that she has no idea what he's talking about he will shut up. He probably just assumed she knew about this because she knows about everything else, especially when it involves Harvey.

"Hm…" she hesitates, pretending to be focused on the files on her hand while she thinks of a way to extract information from Mike. "I'm not sure, Mike…"

Mike shakes his head. "He seemed so excited about it."

"What did he tell you, exactly?" she asks.

"Oh, right." Mike chuckles. "He didn't want to advertise this, right?" Luckily he thinks Donna is just being careful to check what he knows before touching a subject Harvey apparently asked him to keep as a secret. Really, no one could blame Mike for thinking Donna knew all of Harvey's secrets. "I know he asked to borrow his friend Teddy's mansion at the Hamptons for next weekend… By the way, do you know who he was planning on taking with him? I never got to ask."

Donna swallows dryly. Her heart so tight it hurts. "He told you this?" she asks, struggling to sound casual.

Mike chuckles. "I caught him on the phone in the bathroom making arrangements for the house. I thought he would bite my head off, but he told me."

"When was this?"

"Like... three weeks ago? Why?" Mike frowns at her, confused, the uncanny thought that maybe Donna didn't know about this crossing his mind for the very first time.

"Nothing. And he really did tell you he was going next weekend?" She knows she sounds too eager, but she can't help it, swiping her clammy palms on her skirt and staring at Mike wide eyed.

"Yeah, on the twentieth, by night… You did know about this, right?"

_Friday. The twentieth of May._

It breaks a piece of her heart. She couldn't fool herself into thinking this wasn't about them. She knew it was. Harvey had been planning this for them. He would take her away and according to Mike not just for the night, but for the whole weekend, which would clearly go against the rules of their agreement but he was still planning it.

She swipes her fingers on her forehead, pushing her hair back and trying to steady herself. "Of course I did." She rolls her eyes at Mike. "I'm just surprised he told you." Donna says it with so much confidence Mike doesn't dare challenge her. "But anyways, I'm not sure he's going anymore."

"Shit." Mike shakes his head, seeming genuinely sorry for his friend. "He seemed so happy about it. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen him in such a good mood this whole time I've known him."

Way to rub the wound, Michael. Donna bites the inside of her cheeks and purses her lips, reigning her emotions.

"He'll live," she says dismissively. "Now. Off my chair. I've got more work to do besides being your relationship guru."

She shoos Mike away and sinks into her chair, allowing herself a moment to bury her face in her hands the second he turns around the corner, feeling a sting in her eyes as she tempers down the urge to cry.

Her mess of a relationship with Stephen scared her, made her realize she didn't know everything, she couldn't read everyone and she couldn't predict the catastrophic consequences of her every decision. And it was enough to scare her away from her agreement with Harvey because it reminded her exactly why she had that rule in the first place.

She had that rule because she didn't want to be _that _woman. The secretary sleeping with her womanizer of a boss. She never wanted people thinking she accomplished anything in her professional life that way. That was a generic rule and just good sense. But after she had slept with Harvey for the first time, after she allowed herself to give in to him and came to know what it felt like to be with him, she knew this was way more dangerous. Her good sense became a Harvey centric rule because she wanted to try and he clearly didn't so she couldn't run the risk of falling for him.

She was an idiot fooling herself into thinking they could make that agreement and make it uncomplicated. She thought she was keeping emotional distance while keeping him physically close, but she wasn't. Deep down, she's known this for a few years and was just never willing to admit it to herself. Harvey is now so woven into her heart she thinks if she tries to cut him out it would probably leave her heartless.

Being with Stephen and seeing how Harvey had reacted to that,like he was jealous, but still insisting it didn't mean anything, insisting on separating her personal life with Stephen from their professional relationship, made it pretty clear he wasn't ready. He didn't want a relationship. He wanted _her_, but he didn't want to _be_ _with_ _her_. So that's how she knew their agreement would eventually ruin their relationship because she wanted _him_ and she wanted more and she wasn't sure how much longer she could keep that inside if she kept falling into his arms. And if she told him that, he just would've said he didn't feel the same.

Or that's what she thought.

But now, finding out about his plans of traveling together... It shakes her confidence. And she's had her confidence shaken so many times in the last week she's exhausted. She doesn't usually have to face self doubt but now she's scared maybe she made a huge mistake ending her agreement with Harvey. Maybe they had a shot.

She allows herself a glimmer of hope. Thinks about talking to him, going back on her decision, giving them a chance. But that same day Scottie's back to negotiate the firm's dissolution and right in the middle of that she gets back together with Harvey so whatever she thought might be there for the two of them feels pointless and hopeless.

.

.

* * *

**AN:** Thank you everybody for all the love. Thank you to Blue for betaing. Really hope you enjoyed this one. Thoughts are very much appreciated.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Acting as if nothing had happened wasn't exactly hard. It's what they always do, what they had always done, especially since never mentioning their agreement was part of their agreement.

"_The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club," Harvey quoted that second night in her bed, the first of their agreement, as they discussed how this thing was going to work out. He was naked under the sheets and finding himself hilarious._

_She rolled her eyes, hiding her amusement. "Is this supposed to sound like Brad Pitt? Also, if you refer to what we're doing as a 'club' again there really will be a fight here."_

_He had just laughed at her._

So yeah. They never really discuss it. Except for some heavy flirting they were physically unable to contain right before the main event. Except for when she broke up with him. How the hell she could possibly have broken up with him when they had never even been together is something Donna still can't wrap her own mind around.

Donna watched as Harvey and Scottie picked up the course of their relationship right where they had once left it – before they had even begun, she was under the impression they were already in the middle.

She can't help but wonder what would've happened if things were just a little bit different. Ponder if some slightly different decision would have been able to stop this turn of events. She hates herself for wondering if she had never gotten involved with Stephen, if they had just gone to the Hamptons together, if she hadn't broken the agreement, if…

If Harvey would be with Scottie.

It's a cruel doubt, some sort of self-punishment her mind imposes on her, but it's there, insistent and painful, every time she listens to way more than she ever wanted to on the intercom to his office.

He probably would, she tells herself. What they had was casual. It was a verbal contract that didn't involve feelings. Even though it definitely didn't _feel_ like that when they were together. It felt so very real and not one-sided at all and she spends a long time trying to rid her mind of that idea because if they ever had a chance, they'd lost it.

But, as it turns out, a year is a pretty long amount of time. Even more than she realized.

It's long enough to see Harvey and Scottie's relationship crash and burn. Even while she genuinely,_ genuinely,_ tried to help, guiding him and trying to make him open and vulnerable with a woman who wasn't her, just because she couldn't stand the thought of seeing Harvey get hurt and not do anything to prevent it. Because she wants him to be happy. And it's not up to her to decide what that means.

It's long enough for her to forget her reasons or to think maybe they weren't as real and important as she once thought. Maybe she overreacted. Maybe _she could_ control her feelings for Harvey.

She had been doing just that for so long and whether she's currently sleeping with him or not, if the last year has taught her anything it's that not being with Harvey is _not_ the thing that's going to make her feelings change – if she even is capable of ever changing them at all.

Eventually she considers she probably pushed him away for no good reason because the feelings she was trying so hard to avoid are all still there, pounding inside her heart a year later, and although they're currently complication free she's not sure it's worth it for how much she misses him.

A year is long enough for her to regret her decision.

.

.

He had to meticulously time his exit from the office and carefully avoid her, which really wasn't the easiest task considering she has eyes behind her back and ears in his walls and full control over his calendar, but he proudly manages it, in time to be back with a few minutes to spare. When she struts out of the building, she spots him casually standing on the sidewalk by his car.

She smiles, not having expected to see him anymore tonight after she found his office empty. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to deliver these," he says as he pulls the bouquet of pink lilies from behind his back. Smooth. Casual. Just as he had planned.

"Who are those for?" She points at the flowers and for a second he can't decide if she's teasing him or genuinely asking.

"Who do you think they're for? For you. For your dressing room."

She smiles, accepting the flowers in her hands and almost blushing, which is so unusual for Donna he then knows that she really was asking and that his answer had the desired effect he'd wanted on her.

"Thank you," she says in a sweet tone.

Harvey smirks and opens the car door, a simple "Let's go," falling from his lips.

That surprises her much more than the flowers themselves, though. "You're coming?" she asks.

"You think I'm gonna miss your closing night?"

"I didn't know you were a Shakespeare fan?"

"I'm a Donna fan," he states proudly, not an ounce of shame about his cheesy line because goddamn it if it isn't true.

She looks away, smiles like it's an effort not to beam. And right at that moment, watching her holding those flowers, glowing under the street light, on her way to enter his car, he smiles to himself as the thought of how nice this is briefly floats in the back of his mind.

She has a second thought, turning just before she enters the car. "You know Harvey, you don't _have_ to do this. I know you got a lot going on with Mike–"

He cuts her off immediately. There is honestly no place else he would rather be right now and absolutely no way he would miss the chance to watch Donna on that stage.

"The only thing I got going on tonight is you."

.

.

Donna knew he would wait for her after the show, so she changed into normal clothes as fast as she could, declined invitations from the cast and crew to go out to celebrate the last show of the season and stepped outside to find him, even if they hadn't made any sort of plans.

She doesn't have to look around long. He's right by the backstage door, casually leaning against the wall and scrolling his phone, which he promptly slides into his pocket when he spots her.

She smiles sweetly and raises her eyebrows questioningly at him, an amused and wordless _what are you still doing here?_ because, even though _she knew_ he would be there, she wouldn't miss the opportunity to toy with him.

"I thought I could take you out for a drink to celebrate your closing night," he answers her unspoken question, pushing off the wall and stepping closer to her, his own amused grin painting his face, even if a bit sheepish for his standards.

"You didn't think I was going to celebrate with the people who were actually _in_ the play?" she teases.

"I knew there was a chance, but I thought the odds were in my favor."

"And why is that?"

He steps closer to her and shrugs, not wanting to lay all his cards on the table yet. "Sometimes you gotta trust you have a good hand."

It is not a lack of restraint he usually allows himself, but his gaze drops from her eyes, just a moment to admire that slit in her cleavage, the marine blue lace resting delicately over her breasts offering so little to gaze upon and so much to wish for.

"You were great tonight, by the way," he adds, his voice low and meaningful.

"I know you mean this well, but I don't appreciate limitations being placed on my greatness," she says, a smirk tugging the corners of her lips.

He grins at her sass. It never ceases to entertain him.

Then he glances at the street, following a passing car with his sight to avoid her eyes for long enough to steel himself for what he's about to say.

Harvey had thought a year was a long time when he was waiting to be with her but, as it turns out, it's longer when he's not. When they make each other laugh and he wants to press his mouth into her smile but knows he won't, ever. When they accidentally flirt but he knows it's never leading anywhere anymore. When they look at each other with lingering longing and realize they'll just keep longing.

But a year is a really long time and for once he hopes this works to his benefit. Hopes that maybe it's enough time for her to have changed her mind, for her to maybe miss him, for her to let him in. It's long enough for him to hope again.

"You know what day it is today, right?" he asks, tilting his head at her, his gaze involuntary dropping down to her body before he meets her eyes again.

Donna clutches the straps of her purse, focusing all the tension of her body into her knuckles so it doesn't show on her face. She slowly tilts her head, mirroring Harvey's movement in a way that says both _Harvey_ and _Of course I do_.

He steps closer to her, stopping mere inches away. "I know you said… but that was so long ago and now we're here and I miss you like crazy."

He sounds both hesitant and determined and she gazes up at him, unsure of how to tell him she was wrong and it's really been so long and will he just take her home already because she also misses him like crazy.

After a second too long, her lips part to say one or all of those things, but he's done waiting.

"I'm gonna kiss you right now," he says quietly, with a soft smile, and _not_ like he's asking, but just like he's amused by the fact that only he can make her speechless. Like he's telling her if she really wants to keep their agreement off she better find her words rather quickly because otherwise he is making this happen.

She doesn't find any words, but does find his lips, leaning to meet him halfway, his mouth softly moving against hers, his hands strong on her waist, pulling her closer. He angles his head and deepens their kiss and Donna places her hand on his face and kisses him back, in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of her theater, while a million tiny specs of light float around them. Within them.

.

.

They lay tangled together in her bed, naked in each other's arms, the white bedsheet barely covering anything, resting on her lower half while he has his arms around her waist.

They've been like this for a while now, in silence, resting after an earth-shattering first round. Her room is dimly lit and there's light rain pouring down outside. She feels cozy and relaxed in his arms, cheek resting on his naked chest, feeling it go up and down slowly, in the rhythm of his breathing, while his muscled arms hold her body against him.

"Are you cold?" he asks, a palm wrapping around her slender waist, softly traveling up to her ribs over the goosebumps on her skin.

She tells him no and before she can ask why, his knuckles lightly trace a line up the underside of her breast and around her hard nipple, making it even harder and her goosebumps tenfold.

"That's not the cold, Harvey," she says in an amused and aroused hum.

He grins, smug and happy about the effect he has on her and the fact that even right after everything he had just made her feel, she's still needy for him.

He still has his gaze fixed on her breasts, lost in his happy thoughts and in a daze of afterglow when her voice brings him back. "That's why you went tonight, wasn't it?" she asks accusingly, but the humor is evident in her tone.

He disentangles from her slightly, her head falling to the pillow as he props himself on an elbow to watch her face, his other hand absentmindedly traveling her body. Her waist, a thumb brushing over her stomach, fingertips sliding up to her ribs before lightly scratching their way down her belly. She feels like these goosebumps are never, ever going away now.

"Okay," he tells her, a sheepish smile on his lips. "I'd be lying if I told you I didn't think that _maybe_ there was some hope that tonight we could…"

She bites her lips trying to hide her smile, but he doesn't hide his at all.

"But you know I never miss one of your plays," he adds.

"Never?"

"Never. So even if the only happy ending I got tonight was the one from The Merchant of Venice, I still would've gone."

She laughs, her giggles filling the silent space of the room, her shoulders shaking and she wants to tell him he's an idiot but he's gazing down at her with so much tenderness in his eyes, that she can't. His hand comes up to cup her face, thumb brushing her cheek. She watches him bite his own lip and shake his head in the slightest movement, leaning the tiniest bit closer and she thinks he's gonna kiss her. Instead, his eyes travel her face, the laughter in her eyes, her flushed cheeks and swollen lips, her hair splayed on the pillow, the moment suddenly holding so much more weight.

Then he says, "No, really, I just went in hopes to see Louis in that outfit."

She spurts out a laugh and he's chuckling, grinning from cheek to cheek at seeing her like that.

"No, don't mock him," she tells him lightly, stopping her own laughter.

He scrunches his nose in confusion. Making fun of Louis is a great pastime and she was the one to text him that photo in the first place. "Why not?"

"He helped me so much with this."

"He did?"

"Yeah," she says, rolling on her side to sneak an arm around his middle. "I was _so_ nervous opening night and I wasn't off-book yet and I was losing my shit."

Harvey's eyebrows shoot sky-high. "_You_ were _nervous_?"

She chuckles. "Yeah. It happens sometimes. Not very often," she clarifies with a playful raise of her own eyebrows.

He takes a second, his fingers weaving into her hair and brushing it back, the soft strands sliding between his knuckles.

"You didn't tell me any of this," he says quietly.

Donna shrugs. "You were busy."

"Not for you."

He sounds so earnest. His voice in her favorite low and hoarse tone and she realizes he's right. No matter what had been going on, Harvey has always been there for her, just like he was tonight, even amongst the mess with Gillies and Mike, he was there for her.

"Next time I'll be sure to make you run some lines with me," she tells him.

_"Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence and here choose I- _Wait, what is it? Merry be the consequence?" Harvey loudly proclaims in the worst accent Donna's ever heard and that earns him a full belly laugh from her.

She buries her face in his chest, giggling, and Harvey keeps stroking her hair and silently laughing, glad to have her close like this. Their legs tangled together, Donna's feet touching his, her arm around him, fingertips lightly digging into his back, her hair tickling his chin. Everything feels so light and easy and he briefly considers what a tragedy it is that life doesn't always feel this way.

She places a quick peck on his chest, before rolling on her back again, smiling up at him. Harvey leans down and places a couple of soft kisses on her lips.

He leans back in time to watch her with her eyes still closed, the ghost of a smile on her lips. When she looks back at him, he takes her chin in his hand, his thumb landing on the corner of her mouth. He softly moves it over her lips, from one corner to the other.

"I like your mouth," he says quietly as his thumb reaches the middle of her mouth again and then he drags it slowly down, pulling her bottom lip along with it, just a little bit, just enough to expose the wetness of the inside of her lip to him, moistening the tip of his finger as she looks up at him with wide hazel eyes.

He pushes his thumb over her lips once more, just slightly inside to meet the tip of her tongue. Donna wraps her lips around his finger and sucks him in, eyes fixed on his, and Harvey watches, feeling his dick throb with envy.

He leans down, replacing his thumb with his tongue, the wet finger running down her chin and the column of her throat as he slides his tongue along hers, kissing her slow and thorough, softly nibbling on her bottom lip and sucking the top one into his mouth.

Donna hums deliciously and he can't help but smile into the kiss, moving even closer to her.

His hands roam her body, warm palms over creamy, satin-smooth skin. Her lower stomach, her arms, her thighs...

"You're soft," he lets the thought escape his lips in a murmur as he rolls on top of her, lips skimming the side of her neck, right under her ear.

Donna lets out a hoarse chuckle, welcoming his body against hers, her arms circling his middle, fingernails lightly scratching the curve of his back.

"And you're tiny," he says.

She can't help but to snort. "What?! I am _not _tiny."

He moves his lips from her neck to look at her and nods to emphasize his point. "When you're out of your heels, yes you are."

"Harvey, I am 5ft 9!"

"Whatever, look, I can cover your entire body with mine," he says, pressing his weight on top of her, legs tangled, her face buried in his neck as she laughs and tries to squirm away from him but he won't let her, crushing her in place, a hand on her slender waist keeping her close. "Because you're tiny."

Her hands slide around his muscled body and wrap around his waist when he balances his weight on his elbows at each side of her, giving her a chance to breathe. He looks at her and it's quiet and lingering. Then he brings his lips to hers slowly, brushing against hers again and again before he softly sucks her bottom lip between his own. She hums against him, caressing his skin and giving herself to his kisses.

Donna runs her hands down his toned back, his muscles contracting at the touch of her fingertips, sliding down to his ass and kneading, digging her short fingernails into him and Harvey groans around her tongue, grinding down between her legs.

She uses her legs to guide him, rolling on top of him, her hair draping around their faces as she keeps kissing him. Harvey reaches for her face to push the hair away, but she leans back, sitting on top of him, sliding down to position herself right over his cock, pressed against his stomach.

She places her palms on his chest and moves her body slowly, forwards and back, sliding her wet pussy lips against his erection. Harvey's hands are on her hips trying to make her grind down harder, but she keeps control of the pace, flicking his nipples again and again with her thumbs, watching Harvey slowly lose control under her, lips parted, heavy breathing, desperate to bury himself inside her.

But the thing is, the tip of his cock hits right at her clit at each motion forward and, though she would like to tease him some more, she's getting desperate herself so she lifts up on her knees, takes the base of his cock in hand and positions the tip at her entrance. Then she sinks herself down on him as slowly as she can, Harvey moaning at the feel of her tight, warm walls engulfing him an inch at a time until she's sitting on him again and he's completely inside of her.

She leans back a bit, placing her hands on his thighs for support and starts moving up and down on him and gyrating her hips and goddammit she's going to kill him. Her hair cascades down her back and he has this wonderful view of her breasts bouncing, of her pale, freckly torso and flat stomach down to the place where they're joining and he watches entranced as she moves him in and out of her, a perfect view of her stretched around his girth and her pink, swollen clit.

His hands travel everywhere. Stroking her thighs, cupping her breasts to feel them bounce on his palms, gripping her waist to pull her down harder. A hand smoothes down her stomach until he reaches her center, his thumb starts rubbing her clit in time with her unhurried movements and Donna whimpers and pants, mouth open, eyes fixed on his, watching his concentration on her pleasure.

This is amazing but he wants her closer, needs her closer. So he leans up, sitting on the mattress and keeping Donna on his lap, her legs wrapped around him, their stomachs pressed together, her hard nipples rubbing his chest as they move in tandem and he kisses her deeply.

She kisses his mouth and his face, her lips finding his jawline, his eyebrow, his temple, and he can feel each one of her moans crash hotly against his skin. He licks up her neck, kisses her throat and chin. He doesn't usually get those romantic speeches and empty philosophies about connection and how sex could be more than sex, more than physical, but when he's with Donna he does.

He's never felt this close to anyone in his entire life and this feeling is only marginally related to her body – how she's tightly wrapped around him, how their skin rubs together and how her tongue tastes inside his mouth. Mostly, it's about the way she makes him feel – blissful and complete – and about how he feels _her_ all around and within him.

She kisses up his neck and then her mouth meets his ear, nipping his lobe softly before she murmurs, her words hoarse and hot into his ear, telling him how close she is, and how good he is, and how good he makes her feel, and if he's the best closer in the city then he better close her right now.

Only her voice in his ear and her words almost close _him_. He gathers all his self control to not let go and to keep moving within her, his hand pressing harder on her lower back to force her against him and grind her clit against his pubic bone as he keeps thrusting his hips into her mercilessly and sucks hard on her collarbone.

Donna's panting and moaning, her arms tightly around his neck, fingernails digging crescent marks into him and she moans his name again and again like it's the only word she's even known, quivering on Harvey's lap.

He's gripping the soft flesh of her ass tightly, using his hold on her to keep moving her body on top of his as she goes limp and breathless in his arms and, _god,_ he loves coming inside her, feeling her wet and warm and tight and all around him, having her neck to bury his face in and muffle his groans, and her touch to bring him down from his high.

They stay joined for a while, calming their breathing. Harvey smooths his hands up and down her spine and Donna keeps her head on his shoulder, hugging him lightly. It's soft and quiet and the raindrops tapping against the windows almost lull them into sleep.

She eventually straightens her body on top of him to find his soft brown eyes. Harvey smiles, hands still caressing her back, and Donna bumps her nose against his. He thinks it's adorable and smiles harder, softly pressing his lips to hers.

"You were great tonight, too, by the way," she tells him with a huge smile on her face.

He just laughs at her.

.

.

She walks him to the door and he kisses her goodnight. And kisses her again and again, one hand cupping her face, the other resting on her waist, taking his time tasting her lips as if that's not what he'd just spent half the night doing and he looks at her before he leaves, an emotion stuck in his irises, something inexplicably similar to what she could only call longing, and she doesn't get why he would leave if he longed to stay, so she figures she must've read that wrong.

.

.

_Fight club._

They don't ever mention it.

Months and months pass and life and Harvey are just the same as always so she figures she had _definitely _read him wrong that night.

But then Liberty Rail happens.

She commits a fraud trying to help on a case and crumbles in front of Harvey in fear and he tells her how the thought of her going to prison makes him want to drop to his knees.

He fights to save her and he's a man who's constantly fighting the world but she had _never_ seen Harvey fight this hard or this relentlessly for anything else in his life.

He doesn't comfort her, not initially, but he does protect her with everything he has. And he saves her.

She invites him to her apartment to celebrate and cooks him dinner. Candles light her living room as they go through a couple bottles of wine and they talk and laugh and are so comfortable together like this kind of domesticity belongs to them. She looks into his eyes and sees a whole life.

He tells her that he won't ever let anything happen to her and that she doesn't ever have to feel scared like that again and the way he looks at her, the way his voice sounds... It pulls on every string tethering her heart in place.

He tells her how if anyone else ever loses faith in him it doesn't matter, but with her it's different.

And then it hits her.

It hits her slow and hard, crashing into her chest with a monumental force in a single second that seems to stretch years back to when they first met.

He does feel it. He clearly does and he _has to_ because this feeling is larger than life and so irrefutable that _how could he not_ and what kind of fools are they for not being together when this feels so right, so perfect.

He looks like he's going to kiss her but his mouth decides to tell her he has to go instead.

She has never, ever done this before but for once she decides to question his feelings for her. Why. Why are they doing this? Why the hell is he leaving again like he always does when he could stay forever?

He tells her he loves her and that she's supposed to know.

But he still leaves.

.

.

* * *

**AN:** Happy Intent anniversary! Let's pretend I timed this chapter to match that. Also, my birthday is today so happy birthday to me!... watching Intent and sobbing.

Anyways, I'm sorry about the longer wait, guys. I'm burned out and busy and this fic is getting harder. But we power through!

Thank you for all your amazing, encouraging, loving reviews. They mean so much! Thank you Blue for the never ending amount of love and support. And a very special thank you to Sam, author of that incredibly sexy line where Donna tells Harvey to close her, which I love so much and she generously let me use here.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_Love me how?_

She can't believe she actually asked him that and, what's worse, that he couldn't, or wouldn't, give her an answer. Humiliation and heartbreak sting inside her bones every time she thinks of that night.

He told her they had everything. And yeah, right, _he_ did. He had all of her, all the parts he asked for or needed or she willingly offered.

She didn't.

There are parts of Harvey that are out of her reach. Some other version of him that exists within glimpses of what they could be but never fully are. And when those glimpses fade away she is left with the reality that there is so much of him she still needs and wants and craves and he's never been ready to give.

All those nights she went home after work, sat on her couch with a glass of wine and felt the loneliness streaming in her blood flow. Or what was so much worse – all the times she went to a boyfriend's arms, anyone who wasn't Harvey, and felt just as alone.

Fantasies of everything they could be hurt the most because she knows, _she knows, _they could be _so _happy. But Harvey is just not willing to try.

She told him he was afraid to risk anything, but now she constantly wonders if she could really blame him for that when she also couldn't find it within herself to tell him what she wanted.

Asking for _everything_ sounded too big and scary and life-changing but she did want something else. Something more. What they have may be undefined but it's something as solid and real as the weight of his body on top of hers and she couldn't pretend she didn't feel it anymore.

She gets it if he's frightened by the immensity of everything they could be, she really does, because she is, too. What she doesn't get is the part of him that acts like nothing's ever happened, that takes back his words and says his actions have no meaning, that hides away and completely denies ever feeling anything.

She needed space. Real space, not just not-sleeping-with-you-anymore space, to clear her mind, to fix what was broken, to try and forget him or maybe, just maybe, and she hates the part of her that thinks that maybe…

Distance could make him see.

Shortsightedness. Some things seem clearer from afar. It would explain why Harvey can't see what's right in front of his face, even when just about everybody else sees it.

So she left him.

She's been working for Louis for the last three months. Not on shitty terms with Harvey for a week and a half. And he was bold, she'll give him this much. He was bold coming to her about this, asking her out to Del Posto because it's May 20th and she forgot to unlock the day from his calendar when she left his desk and he says he wants to go back to being friends.

It's sweet, really.

She needed to distance herself from him but she wasn't really aware of what distance from Harvey felt like. She's used to being near him twelve hours a day. Used to his voice on the intercom and his phone calls at midnight. Used to putting him first and having a professional excuse for having Harvey at the forefront of her mind for most of the day. But not anymore. She's supposed to think of herself now. (And she does. She thinks about how much she misses him.)

Either way, she never intended to cut him out of her life completely. Her intentions beyond that breaking point weren't so clear and definitive, she was just trying to protect herself there, to do what was best for her for once, but she doesn't think she could cut Harvey completely out of her life even if she wanted to, even while she's trying to.

It hurt like hell when Harvey started treating her like a stranger. And he said he didn't want to move on, that two adults who care about each other don't move on at all, but he also clearly didn't want to move forward then and, after that, didn't seem like he cared for her unless he had her in the only way he was willing to accept.

But if now he's willing to fix their relationship, to go back to being friends, to still have her in his life… of course she would always give him a chance.

It's actually a huge relief. Maybe she would stop feeling like her world had spinned upside down if she got a little bit of him back.

So she agreed to see him on Wednesday night.

.

.

Harvey tries not to think about what excuse Donna told Louis to leave work early tonight. He's sure as hell she didn't tell him she was meeting him or Louis would have lost his shit, scared to lose her, and as bitter as the thought of Donna working for Louis is, he can't blame the man for being desperate not to lose her. He actually relates.

He hopes they can salvage some of what they had. As Donna had made perfectly clear to him that night three months ago, _she_ _doesn't_ think they had everything. But they damn sure had a lot. A lot he's not willing to lose.

He's never been able to define their relationship – has never even tried. She's his… friend. The person he trusts the most in this goddamn life. The person he has always counted on. The one person who truly gets him. His constant. His once-a-year everything. His secretary.

_Ex_ secretary.

He doesn't know what she is but he knows how empty his life has been ever since she stopped being.

He picks her up at her place. He went straight from work, had Ray stop at her apartment and take them both to Del Posto. And, yeah, it's a little awkward at first. They try and make small talk on the drive over, but they haven't really talked in months and the last time they did was a catastrophe. Donna catches up with Ray and he hopes it's not to avoid the moment she'll have to catch up with him.

But it's their anniversary and their place and _them_ and Harvey doesn't even realize when exactly it happens but they fall into place. Comfortable with each other as they always have been. She even tells him stupid stories about her new boss and manages to make him laugh about it and he hasn't thought about Jack Soloff and his bullshit for hours and, holy shit, he misses her _so fucking much_.

She notices the look on his face as that thought crosses his mind and he hates that he misses even that – being so easily known.

"What?" she asks.

"I just realized I haven't thought about Jack Soloff and his bullshit for two hours." He finds it better to omit the other half of his thoughts.

"I'm glad we did this, Harvey."

"Me too. We should do this more often," he says, so glad to be spending the evening with her the words naturally fall out of his mouth.

He avoids her gaze, taking a sip of wine. He doesn't know where they stand. Before all this mess, they couldn't sleep together because she worked for him and she had a rule. Before all this mess, she would open a once a year exception for him because they couldn't handle the crushing weight of their sexual tension if she didn't. And now…

It's scary as shit to think there's nothing standing in their way anymore. Her rule can't stand if she's not his secretary. But if he's lost her already, then why the hell is he still so afraid to lose her?

But it's _their day_. He doesn't need to offer her everything to have some hope for today. She agreed to be here tonight with him and he doesn't want to get ahead of himself because he knows they're in a rough patch, but what better way to go back to being _them_ than honoring their agreement? It had always weighed heavily on them that this is the one opportunity they have to be together and it hasn't stopped weighing on him now, even while so much has changed.

_They should _do this more often. Why once a year? Who the fuck had this stupid idea? This is torture and senseless and they sure can find a better way to deal with their need for each other now that she doesn't work for him anymore. They can find a way other than their agreement to do this, a way that's more constant but also safe so he doesn't fuck up their relationship even more than he already has and loses her for good, since clearly getting his feelings involved was a bad idea. It's what made her leave. So this possibility _has to_ _be_ the one silver lining about this goddamn nightmare he's living in.

"What do you mean?" she asks, frowning, that little line between her eyebrows showing she obviously cut through his casual tone and knew he meant more than he was letting on.

Harvey shrugs, trying to simplify a thought that seems too monumental for his vocabulary. "Just… That we have a good time together and that I miss you and I think we could… do this more often."

Donna takes a deep breath, avoiding his gaze for a moment. "Well, I'm not sure how Mitchell would feel about that," she says.

"Who's Mitchell?"

"He is the man that I've been seeing for the last six weeks." She smiles, playing with the stem of her glass, and Harvey wants to crash the bottle of wine to the floor. "He is… He is smart and he is funny and… Best of all, he has nothing to do with the practice of law."

He feels his world turn on its axis, a heaviness crushing his chest and the words escaping out of his mouth. "Are you kidding me?"

Donna blinks at him, taken aback by his quiet ferocity, not understanding what he means. "What?"

"You're _with_ someone?"

"Yes. I just told you. Mitchell."

"Then what the hell are we doing here tonight?!"

"What the hell are we…?" she repeats his words, an incredulous look on her face. Then she shakes her head, avoiding his eyes as disappointment flashes through her features. "You've gotta be kidding me. _That's_ what you thought tonight was, Harvey? You thought you would just take me to bed?"

"You say it like that's not exactly our agreement!" he says and maybe it doesn't come out right, the intention probably shadowed by his anger, because if looks could kill, he would be a dead man right now.

"When I said I was leaving you, you didn't think our agreement was off?" she asks with disdain. He notices her eyes reddening while she speaks and it probably really is anger, as she's making so clear, but he can't help but see sadness in there too.

"You wanna know what I thought, Donna? I thought you don't work for me anymore so we can stop living by your goddamn rule!"

"Oh yeah, of course _that's _what's been on your mind, not the reason why I don't work for you anymore in the first place."

She's wrong there, he thinks. He's been dwelling a lot on how he was such an idiot letting words like 'love' escape his mouth when he's not even sure what that means. Of course he loves her. She's one of the most amazing women he's ever met. _The_ most amazing woman he's ever met. And she's his… But that doesn't mean he…

He has no idea what he meant.

"And you're such a hypocrite, Harvey," she adds. "What the hell does it matter to you if I'm with Mitchell or not when you're with Esther?!"

It feels like a left hook right to his gut. Completely unexpected. He struggles to take a breath.

"What?"

"Oh please. It took me all of two seconds to put it together after I saw you two _mooning_ over each other this morning."

"It's not what you think," he says, working hard so his tone doesn't sound too defensive. "We bonded together during her divorce proceedings."

She takes a deep breath, trying to get her voice to come out even, trying to get back on track. This was about saving their relationship and right now they're failing miserably.

She didn't expect Harvey to bring up their agreement at all. Just dinner was not how they celebrated their anniversary, but after everything that happened and considering they've only managed to be civil to each other recently she couldn't imagine he would expect anything more.

She tries to stir them to the right direction. "Harvey, you said you wanted to be friends. This is me being your friend–"

"Friends don't know the way you taste, Donna!" he whisper shouts, barely remembering they're in a full restaurant.

Her lips part in shock. She looks around, concerned someone might have heard him, and it pisses him off even more that she would be worried about what others would think right now.

"What did you just say to me?" she threatens when her eyes meet his again, like slits in anger.

He completely ignores the disappointment in her face. "You heard me. You know what this day means to us and yet you came here and decided to tell me about someone else as if it's great news?"

"_You're _with someone else, Harvey. And, by the way, you need to tell Louis you've been sleeping with his sister."

"I don't need to do that because, for once, your radar is off. We haven't been sleeping together. We slept together one time."

"What difference does that make? You promised him you wouldn't do it at all."

"Donna, I don't fucking care about Louis! Stop acting as if this conversation has anything to do with him!"

"Well, as your friend, I thought I should let you know you need to tell him, but since you decided we're not that anymore, even though you asked me here tonight saying you wanted to go back to being friends…" Her voice sounds strangled, the knot in her throat from the restrained urge to cry hurting her vocal cords. "You just do whatever you want to, Harvey. You always do anyway."

"Well, clearly I don't just _do_ whatever I want to…" he says in disdain, taking a sip of his wine to clear his throat, gazing sideways.

His words hit her and she feels stupid for being shocked by them. He wants to fuck her and that's it. She knew that already and how naive and ill-judged of her to let herself be fooled by declarations of feelings he obviously never meant or empty words about salvaging something they never had. She thought they did. She thought even if he didn't really love her, she was still important to him in some way other than in a professional capacity, but maybe not if that's how he sees their relationship.

"You know what, Harvey? This was a mistake. Coming here tonight. I thought you wanted to try and save our relationship but I don't think we even have one. I'm not your secretary anymore and you made it clear that was everything I could ever be to you. And tonight you made it clear that we're not even friends. So if it's sex that you want I'm sure you can find that elsewhere. With Esther, for example, even though 'you only slept with her once'," she says making air quotes, her fingers quickly swiping a tear away from her eyes in their way back down. "I think we're really done here. I thought we could still be… whatever we were even if I didn't work for you anymore but it's clear that to you we are nothing so… We can just stop pretending and you can go back to treating me like a stranger. That's what I'll do from now on. I'm done, Harvey. I'm really done this time."

She takes a deep, trembling breath. Grabs the napkin from her lap and places it slowly on the table. Her hands shake but Harvey doesn't see it, his own vision blurry, his mind foggy, his breath beginning to choke him as his heart beats a million heartbeats a second and he doesn't get how it could still be beating when he's pretty sure she took it with her when she got up and left.

_She's done._

He can't breathe anymore and this can't be happening. Not again. Not here. Not now...

.

.

She's right outside of Del Posto, hugging her coat around her body, trying to hail a cab and keep her tears at bay when a voice startles her.

"Miss?" the voice calls again, and she looks over her shoulder at the waiter calling her by the door, realizing he might have called before and she didn't hear. He's wide eyed and it makes her nervous. "Your friend…" he says, hesitantly.

Something coils horribly in her stomach. She knows something is wrong with Harvey, can suddenly feel it deep in her bones.

"What happened?"

"I think he's sick. Can you come and–"

She doesn't even let the guy finish the sentence before she's bursting back into the restaurant, terrified out of her mind. She quickly notices he's not at their table anymore and her chest sinks, but thankfully the waiter is right behind her, telling her he's in the restroom and accompanying her there, which is good because she doesn't think she can tell left from right.

When she goes through the restroom door she sees Harvey seated on the floor, his forehead pressed to his knees and clearly shaking. He's sweaty and shivering and the way his shoulders heave tells her he's not breathing right at all. There's a restaurant employee standing beside him, a cellphone in his hand, telling Harvey he's calling 911 and Harvey's strangled voice tells him not to.

"Sir, we've got to call the hospital. You are clearly unwell–"

Donna rushes through the door, kneeling in front of Harvey, shaky hands hesitantly resting on top of his where they clutch his legs, whispering his name. The last time she felt scared like this was about three months ago when she almost went to prison and she's pretty sure this is much more terrorizing.

Harvey raises his head from where it rests on his knees to follow the sound of her voice, reddened eyes locking with her wide ones.

"Don–" he tries saying with what little breath he has in his lungs.

"Harvey– Are you…" she starts, eyes frantically travelling all over his features, trying to find something that tells her that he's okay but he's clearly not_. _She glares up at the restaurant employee, rushing him. "Call the goddamn number!"

"No," Harvey weekly protests.

"Harvey, you could be having a heart attack!" she says, more desperate than she would like to sound, one hand traveling from his to land over his chest, feeling the desperate thumping of his heart beneath his suit.

"It's not…" Harvey tells her, dropping his head back between his knees and adding on a choke, "It's a panic attack."

The room is completely silent for a crushing moment as the revelation hits her. She feels the ground sinking down beneath her knees and her heart crashing and she can't imagine how his feels.

"We'll give you some time," the restaurant employee beside them says in a quiet voice, walking out to join the waiter by the door, which they close behind them, leaving Harvey and Donna alone.

She doesn't know what to do. Right in front of her sits the strongest man she's ever met and right now he's not even strong enough to breathe on his own.

Her hand slides to the back of his neck. He is hot, the short hairs at the nape of his neck wet with sweat and she can feel his ragged breath on the palm of her hand.

"Harvey," she calls, trying so hard to make her own voice sound controlled and firm even though she's scared out of her mind. "Harvey, look at me."

He does. Responding to her voice and looking into her eyes. His pupils are dilated, his eyes red rimmed and wet, sweat collecting in his eyebrows. Shaking. His breath loud and inefficient.

She carefully places one hand on his face, caressing his cheek. With the other, she grabs his hand and brings it to herself, pressing his cold palm against her chest and keeping it there, with her hand covering his. She takes a deep, steadying breath she hopes he'll mimic.

"Just breathe, Harvey." Air comes deeply into her lungs and slowly out, pushing their joined hands up and down. Together. Calming. Her thumbs brush slowly over the back of his fingers and over his cheek as she whispers, "I'm here. Just breathe with me."

And he does. Even in the depths of his panic, he follows her voice, the steading rhythm of her breath, her soothing touch. And he clings to the hazel of her eyes to focus his sight. On the guidance of her breath to steady his. On the feeling of her skin against his to calm his panic. To ground him. Because she might be the trigger to what's happening to him but she's also his safe haven and his compass. She's always been.

They stay like this for so long her knees hurt. After a while, he closes his eyes, focusing only on his breathing. _Their breathing_. She keeps stroking his cheek with one hand, the other safely keeping his pressed to her chest, hoping his lungs and his heart will follow the rhythm of hers.

Eventually, she feels his breath evening. His hand tensing beneath hers. She lets her own hand drop from his face to his shoulder and waits until he's ready.

He finally opens his eyes, looking straight into hers. She dries the wetness around his eyelids with her fingertips, not realizing there's also a tear running down her face until his own hand gently reaches for her, the backs of his fingers sliding carefully on the top of her cheekbone to dry it.

"Are you okay?" she asks in a tone so low, she's not sure her voice actually came out.

He nods. It's only once and slow, but it's enough for her. He's not _okay_, but the worst has passed.

There's a bottle of water on the floor beside them, one of the employees had brought in with them, and she reaches for it, opening the cap and offering it to Harvey. He takes gulp after gulp. Once he's done, he dries his mouth with the back of his hand, placing the bottle beside them.

Donna quits her kneeling position, crawling to sit on the floor beside him, her arm presses against his and she turns her face, resting her chin on his shoulder, asking quietly, "Harvey, what's going on?"

He turns to look at her, and she's _so close_. Her chin on his shoulder and wide, scared eyes looking up at his.

"I've been having these..." he mumbles, his breath hitting her face. "Panic attacks."

"How long?" she asks.

He looks at her quietly and her chest tightens even more because _she knows._

"Harvey…!" Her voice cracks. She moves even closer to him, her front pressing against his arm and her hand coming up to his chest, a fresh new set of tears collecting at the corners of her eyes.

"I'll come back," she says earnestly.

"Donna– What?"

"I'll come back to your desk. I'll call Louis and we can put everything that's happened out of our minds and–"

"Donna, stop. I can't force you."

"You're not forcing me. I'm telling you I'll come back."

He drops his head, resting his forehead against hers, a crushing heaviness in his chest that has nothing to do with panic and everything to do with the weight of putting her first in this.

"You know I want you back," he says quietly. "But not like this. Not because you feel guilty. This is _not _ your fault."

"It's not just guilt, Harvey. How can I move on with life knowing you're feeling like this?"

"Please don't make me convince you to stay gone," he begs, with the slightest tinge of humor in his voice. "I never wanted you to go and even if I'm clearly not dealing well with it, when you come back, I want it to be because you actually want to. Not because you're scared. You said…_ this_ was not working for you anymore and I might not understand it and I definitely don't like it but… I'm learning to respect it."

"Are you taking care of yourself?" she asks, in a small voice.

"I am. I'm going to therapy and taking some pills… It's just not always something I can control."

"You're going to therapy?" she blinks up at him.

Harvey nods. "And apparently what happened when… when you left, how this all started, was just a trigger. Or at least that's what they're telling me. So it's not even really about…"

He feels her take a deep breath against his body before she fixes him with a hard, determined look.

"You're gonna be okay, Harvey. You're the strongest person I know and maybe you don't have to be strong all the time. It's okay to… to feel. But whatever this is about, you'll get through it. I have faith in you and I will always be here for you if you need me."

"Always?"

"_Always._"

He smiles softly.

"Well, that's a relief to know. I thought I'd lost you."

"Well, you sure tried to..." She tries to make light of the comment, but it pulls uncomfortably at both their hearts, so she succumbs to the truth. "You wouldn't lose me, Harvey. You're too much of a part of me. I wouldn't cut you out even if I could. You know, I don't think you'll remember this, but you once told me you couldn't be you without me and I know you probably didn't–"

"I remember," he cuts her off, firmly. "And I meant it. Why do you think it's being so hard for me to find my ground now that I'm without you?"

Her lips tremble at his words. How can he feel like that, how can he say stuff like that, _and not see?_

When she finally gets her bearings backs, she says, "Hm. Well. I can't really be me without you either. You changed me and you changed my life and just because I can't work for you anymore… It doesn't mean I don't care or that you're any less important to me. Okay?"

Her eyes are still wide, desperate to make him understand what she's saying, and even though he nods slowly in agreement, he's not sure he honestly does. She's so close to him, her body pressed to his side, her hand right on top of his heart, her chin resting on his shoulder and he just wants more than anything to drop his head in exhaustion and press his lips against hers. He's _sure_ if he did it he would feel alright again. But he thinks it could break her.

"Okay," he says hoarsely, not sure if he's convinced, but feeling better than he's felt in months. Ever since that night at his office watching her go.

.

.

When she does come back to him, it's still because he needs her. But it's different.

It's not because he can't breathe without her, it is because they're about to face the biggest battle of his career to save Mike and they are a team. They are supposed to fight these battles together, because they make each other better and stronger and because he needs her help as much as she wants to be there to help him.

Still, the first morning she's back as Harvey's secretary, as they walk side by side through the hallways of Pearson Specter Litt making arrangements for the battle they're about to enter, their chests swell in relief because their world finally seems right again.

.

.

* * *

**AN:** This one might be angsty but it's wishing the happiest of birthdays to my amazing beta, amazing friend, amazing human, Blue. Love you so much. Thank you for existing in my life and making it so much better. Now let's go re-read her fics to celebrate!

Thank you guys for your incredible love, amazing reviews and all the crazy big smiles you've put on my face. I'm not saying this is coming to an end but I'm also not not saying that.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **As always, I'm blown away and incredibly grateful for all your support. You guys are amazing. These two people here, on the other hand, are complicated as fuck, but they're worth it. And once again, can't express my gratitude to Blue for always being here.

Fasten your seatbelts, we are preparing for landing.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

He catches her reflection on the windows when she walks in, her form blending in with the New York City lights, but doesn't turn. Donna stops halfway to where he is and asks if he's going to be okay.

It's been some hectic months of worry and lack of sleep and breaking his back doing everything to get Mike out of prison and now, now that Mike is _just_ finally out, now that he had finished dealing with the consequences of tanking Sutter's case to benefit Mike and he thinks life will go back to normal… Jessica decides to leave. He feels a heaviness on his shoulders and a void in his chest. And yet, somehow, he knows he will be fine.

"She was my mentor," he says through the knot in his throat. "But yeah. I'm gonna be okay."

"You wanna be alone?" she asks and he almost chuckles at the way she expects his answer to be affirmative, already turning halfway around, prepared to leave as soon as he confirms her assumption.

Instead, he shakes his head and tells her no.

If it had been anyone else coming to check up on him, he knows his answer would've been different. But it's her and going through this weird state of grieving someone who's alive and well and simply leaving sounds much more bearable having her around.

It's interesting, he thinks, that regardless of how sad he is about Jessica's departure, he knows with a certainty that he's going to be okay, whereas when Donna told him that she was simply moving down the hallway to work for Louis instead of him he felt like his world was ending. He crosses the thought off, considers the change an achievement of his therapy treatment.

He's not sure that's quite it.

She walks closer, standing tall and dependable and right beside him, just like she always had, and he doesn't know if it's him or her or some sort of magnetic pull that they seem to have, but their hands reach for each other and he holds her small palm in his and it suddenly feels like it's really okay if he breaks because she could put him back together with a simple touch of her hand.

They hold hands quietly in the dark. She watches the skyline, he chances a few glances at her reflection. They stand like that for so long he doesn't really notice when his thumb starts to slowly brush over the back of her hand.

They should probably let go, he thinks, and as soon as he does her hand starts slipping away from his. He grips her fingers tighter.

She lets him keep her hand in his, turning to find his eyes.

Her voice is quiet, careful not to break something. "You should go home, Harvey. Get some rest."

"That's not what I…" He shakes his head. Sighs. He's not tired and the last thing he wants is to be alone in his apartment right now. Actually, anything else he could possibly do right now sounds like an awful idea. Besides keeping her hand in his.

He thinks he probably doesn't have the right to ask and that he has spent twelve years asking too much of her – something it took her leaving and coming back for him to learn – and that he's about to be selfish one more time, but the way he craves to be near her tonight feels like more than he can bare. He doesn't just need her hand in his or his body in hers. He needs _her._ The way she makes him feel grounded, solid, peaceful. Happy.

He promises himself it's the last time he's acting selfish like this as a way to ease his mind before he asks for what he wants, even if deep down it's a promise he doesn't know whether he can keep.

"Hey, listen…" he says, his voice low. "I'm not really sure where we stand right now. I know it's not our anniversary and I don't even know if we still have an agreement or not. But... you asked if I want to be alone and that's the last thing I want."

Her wide hazel eyes keep fixed on his, cautious, and he can see the denial in them. Her hand goes slack in his. He figures she deserves a bit more honesty.

"I just wanna be with you," he says, earnest and quiet. Then decides to add for good measure, because he's a lawyer after all and these are some very important closing arguments. "Besides, we have a couple of those nights that went to waste and maybe we could…_ cash in_ on them." The corners of his mouth tug up slightly at his choice of words.

She shakes her head slowly. Smiles, thinking he's an idiot. "That's one hell of an exception you're asking for."

"I know."

"You do know the last we spoke of this, this agreement was over, right?" she says, but he sees there's just that tiny bit of her typical Donna humor, even in the heaviness of their moment, the way she almost smirks at him. Her hand gets hotter in his and he knows she's nervous although she would _never_ let it show on her face.

"After all the time we've been together, I don't think it's ever really over between us." The words tumble out of his mouth so much on their own accord they sound raspier than ever. He thinks her breath catches and before she can breathe in and tell him no, he adds, "Just this once. Just tonight, Donna."

Slowly, so slowly that his lungs take a pause, her fingers tighten around his. She takes a deep breath, her gaze diving so deep into his eyes he fears one of them might drown. And that's her yes and maybe that's drowning but he can finally breathe.

.

.

Her hands are still wrapped around his when she guides him through her doorstep. It feels warm and small and comforting as she pulls him in behind her, locks the front door, drops her keys in the glass top of the small desk in the foyer. His chest is heavy but his mind is completely numb, except for the feel of her hand in his.

She sees this in him. How passively he lets her guide him, how quiet he is, the emptiness in his eyes.

"Hey," she says, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. "You've had a rough day. Why don't we relax for a little bit?"

He exhales, shoulders dropping like that was the moment he realized it's only the two of them there and he doesn't have to carry the entire weight of the world because Donna is always okay with sharing the burden – and she's the only person he doesn't mind sharing it with.

She's looking at him expectantly from beneath her long eyelashes and he moves a breath closer, his lips just grazing her temple, breathing in the scent of her hair, before he moves back. "I'd like that."

Donna smiles, finally letting go of his hand and he doesn't really like it but she's moving down the corridor and he follows after.

"I'm gonna open a bottle of wine and what do you say I draw you a bath?"

"A bath?" he repeats, raising one eyebrow humorously.

"You know, hot water can do wonders for easing the tension on those muscles. And for your mood," she says, with a hand on her hips and a know-it-all look in her raised eyebrows.

A small chuckle escapes from his nose. "I'm assuming you'll join me…?"

"That can be arranged."

"Then there's not much you couldn't get me to agree with."

She smiles and shakes her head at him and disappears inside the kitchen after that bottle of wine while he shrugs off his jacket and sinks into the couch.

.

.

She was right, even though there's no surprise in that. Donna really did pull all the stops to relax him – she lit the bathroom with candles and filled the tub with bath salts, the combined scents of the two are soothing and the water is deliciously warm, but absolutely none of that feels as incredible as Donna's body right behind his, her legs around his body, her hands resting over his chest and her lips right by his ear.

There's no tension or sadness or feeling of abandonment that could ever survive that.

He has his hands on her thighs, fingertips scratching slowly over the soft skin behind her knees while Donna tells him a story about one of her college parties and how this girl Mindy Stevens ended up topless on the second floor window and he smiles, eyes fixed on her bent knee, just out of the water.

She finishes her story and he's quiet. Her hands keep gently brushing over his chest, down to his ribs and back up again in an easy slide in the hot, soapy water around them.

"It's gonna be okay, Harvey," she murmurs. "She had her reasons for leaving, all we can do is support her."

"Even if her reasons make no sense?"

"Well, they do to her. That's what matters. You had your reasons for hiring Mike and I'm sure Jessica thought those made no sense."

He huffs some sort of laugh. "Did it make sense to you?"

"Well, I mean, she says she wants to fight for something more and–"

"Not Jessica. Me, hiring Mike."

"You mean your _'life's like this and I like this' _bullshit?" she says, gesturing with her hands in front of him, drops of water falling on his chest. He rolls his eyes at her even if she can't see it. "I mean, kind of. I knew that's who you were so…" She shrugs.

Harvey smiles quietly. "You get me."

"I do. That's not why I accepted it so easily, though."

"It wasn't?"

"No. I actually thought it was good that you had someone you needed to protect. It made you care. I thought it would be good for you."

"Donna…"

"You are a good man, Harvey, but there's always room for improvement, right? Before you hired Mike you thought caring only made you weak and now you're… I think you know that's not true."

"You're saying you predicted all this?" he says, an undeniable fondness to his tone.

She chuckles lightly. "I'm not saying that. I'm also not not saying that."

She rests her chin on his shoulder, then turns her head sucking on the space between his neck and shoulder like she wants to quench her thirst with the droplets of water collecting there, or just with him.

"I care about a lot of stuff," he says, laying his head back on her like he wants to afford her more access.

"I know you do." She brushes her lips along the shell of his ear, stopping to give his earlobe a little bite. "You always did, you're just stubborn."

"And since I can't read minds and predict the future like you, how do I suddenly become okay with what Jessica's doing?"

Donna places a lingering kiss on the side of his neck before she says, "You trust her. Have faith in her, in the fact that she needs this and that she's going to come out better on the other side."

That's what Donna did for him all those years ago and every day since, he thinks, with a smile on his face – trusted him to pull off a fraud because she thought it would make him a better man. She gets even the parts of him he doesn't and she's been placing her unwavering faith in him ever since they met. He doesn't think he deserves this. Her. The way she wraps her arms around him and kisses his neck like he's worthy.

"Can I ask you something?"

She hums against his skin.

"Some time ago you…" he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before he says, "You told me you had your rule just for me and not for anyone else."

He feels her body tense around his, her fingers stopping their movement over his chest.

"Yes…" she answers, carefully.

"Why?"

He's had that doubt stuck in his head for so long, ever since she told him her rule didn't really apply to Stephen Huntley or anyone else and he tried to shove it in a deep corner in his head where he shoves all his forbidden thoughts about her, ones he can't look too closely at, a corner he can't access, but this one keeps coming back and he can't wrap his mind around it. Why would she make a rule to never let him in?

"You already know this, Harvey," she says, quietly, and he frowns because he has no idea. "You called me out on it the second that rule came out of my mouth."

"I don–"

"I was afraid I'd fall for you."

Her words pour against his wet skin and sink into the vastness of his heart and the thoughts that maybe she did or maybe she didn't terrify him in equal parts so he just cranes his neck back to have his lips brush hers, the tip of his tongue sneaking out to lick at her top lip again and again until their mouths meet fully, kissing slow and deep, tasting the sweetness of her mouth and how the wine didn't hide even the littlest bit of the taste of her tongue he's so familiar with. Drowning out his thoughts and fears.

His hands smooth up and down the soft skin of her thighs, slowly swishing the water around and Donna's hand slides down his chest, fingertips splaying down his stomach, feeling the muscles of his abdomen contract, and further down, her fingers meeting the path of light hairs she follows until she wraps her hand around him, making Harvey sigh deeply against her lips.

She strokes and squeezes and twists her fingers around his length, hand easily sliding with the assistance of the water and he's fully hard in her hand before they even stop their kissing to take a breath.

She keeps him in her hand. Her thumb rubbing over a vein in his shaft that makes him groan, and he tries to touch as much of her as he can, one hand gripping her thigh at his side, the other reaching back to her neck, keeping her mouth against his and wettening the hairs in the base of her head she had tried to keep dry by tying her hair up in a knot. She doesn't seem to mind that right now.

She pumps him slowly, the only sounds around them coming from Harvey's low moans and the small waves in the bathtub water crashing around with the movements of her hand.

She twists her fingers around the head of his cock again and again and he groans, his hips buckling before he lets go of her neck to grip her wrist, ending her movements.

"Suddenly this bath is not as relaxing as you advertised," he says, his voice thick with arousal.

She chuckles, giving him a little squeeze. "Oh trust me. You're about to get _very_ relaxed."

"I'll pass. I wanna put all this tension to good use."

"Oh. And what do you have in mind?" she teases, voice dripping sweet innocence.

"It starts with getting out of here. I'll clue you in on the rest later."

Donna grins, keeping another chuckle hidden for effect, when she moans in feign complaint. "But it feels good in here."

He moves, shifting and sitting up in the tub, and kisses her once, twice, holding her face in his hands. "I'll make you feel good out there."

He smirks and stands up and Donna sits there, her knees pushed up against her chest while she watches Harvey, water dropping down from his chiseled, naked body, his erection standing at full attention, getting out of the tub and spilling water on her bathroom tiles.

She bites her lips. Watches him quickly run a towel over his body, catching most of the droplets of water glistening over his skin. He rubs the towel on his face and hair in a haste before discarding it and grabbing a second one, which he opens in front of himself, smiling down at her in invitation.

She smirks up at him and stands in the water and his gaze drops down her body, particularly fixed on this one droplet of water hanging off her right nipple. She steps out of the tub and into the towel, which he wraps around her body in a hug, leaning down to kiss her in the process, his mouth open and wanting. His hands stroke her body over the towel, drying her shoulders and the small of her back. He takes a small step back, his hands pulling the edges of the towel forward to dry her breasts as he kneads both of them in his hands. Then he lowers the fabric, drying down her stomach, hands moving around her to knead her asscheeks, making sure they're dry.

Then he drops to his knees in front of her, circling her ankles with the towel, moving it slowly up her leg. The movement of his hands dragging the towel up her inner thighs makes her part her legs for him, and she places her hands on his shoulders for support. He reaches the crease just below her butt, then moves to do the same to her other leg, drying from her ankles up to the apex of her thigh.

"Now," he says, letting go of the towel that falls to Donna's feet and grabbing her thighs in his hands. "There's a place I definitely want to keep wet," he says with a smirk.

Donna chuckles until his thumbs move to her outer lips. He rubs lightly up and down, barely touching her, and she sighs, fingertips digging into his shoulders. His thumbs open her up to him and she feels as bare as she has ever felt in her life, not because she's standing naked in front of him, Harvey's face between her legs, his fingers spreading her open to his eyes, but because, in this moment, she's sure all her feelings are stripped down and raw and unequivocal. They have been all night and if he would just _see it_...

He closes his eyes, as his mouth meets her center and she moans a wordless hum that she hopes spells it out to him as he kisses her and kisses her and his tongue slides wet and smooth between her lips until her knees are almost buckling and she can't hold herself upright any longer.

"Harvey, I'm gonna fall," she gasps out and the irony doesn't escape her that she already had.

He kisses her. And kisses her lower belly and between her breasts and her lips. His arms wrap around her and he guides her to bed and himself between her thighs and inside her and with each slow, deep thrust, with each touch of her hands over his body, with each of her kisses and moans, each languid movement of their bodies, she finds his eyes in the dark and hopes he feels it. That she's in love with him.

.

.

It's never just sex between them, but tonight felt different.

They made love.

As all the nights they had spent together float around her memory she realizes it wasn't even the first time that happened, but it was the first time she didn't try to hide her feelings at all, the first time she wasn't afraid he would see right through her, the first time she wanted him to.

They've been over for a while now. Harvey has arms and legs over her body, breathing heavy and steady against the side of her neck and she hadn't even noticed she had fallen asleep until he shifts, bringing her back from the light slumber. She blinks up at him, disoriented from sleep, and his hand rubs her waist, apologizing for waking her up, and by the sluggish tone of his voice she knows he had also fallen asleep.

He disentangles from her, cups her jaw and presses his mouth to hers and right then is when she realizes he's kissing her goodbye.

"I have to go," he says.

He's moving away from her and her body misses him instantly and as strongly as if it was a part of her tearing itself away. He's seated, his back to her, moving out of her bed one more time and she doesn't think she can take it.

She moves before she can even think about it, her fingers gently wrapping around his wrist. He looks back at her questioningly and it takes all the strength she can muster to try and translate to words what her hand is so gently and easily spelling out on his skin.

"Harvey… stay."

He's still and it's dark and she can't really see his face enough to read him and that moment seems to stretch forever in a heartbeat.

He slowly turns around, holding her hand in his, dropping his body back into the mattress, shifting closer and closer until he's back beside her and she finally breathes.

He guides her in his arms, turning her, molding his body to the soft curve of her back, his arm stretching under her head, the other over her waist, nuzzling the back of her neck and she shivers. He always did like making her shiver. He inhales deeply the scent of her skin and falls back asleep.

And he stays. All through the night.

.

.

She wakes up to the feeling of his lips on her neck. Light kisses, his lips dragging over her skin slowly and the tip of his tongue swirling around. She realizes his large palm is cupping her breast when he kneads it gently, his fingers slowly rubbing over her nipple.

She hums, pressing her back against his body, feeling him hard against her. There's a hint of light coming through the curtains but it must be still too early.

His hand slides down her abdomen, between her legs, fingers hooking around her inner thigh and pulling it back, over his own leg so she's open for him, moving his cock between her thighs and rutting slowly as he keeps kissing her neck, his hand moving back up to fondle her breasts. She arches back and moans, feeling him rutt between her lips, forwards and back, while he rolls her nipple between his fingertips.

"Harvey…"

He hums in response, busy softly nipping her shoulder.

"Harvey," she calls again after a moment, more urgently, and he moves his hand back down to help press the tip of his cock to her entrance, painstakingly slowly moving inside of her and she moans, melting around him, wet and soft and warm as he moves in and out of her in unhurried thrusts of his hips, like he wants this to last forever.

His large palm flatten against her lower belly, keeping her in place, pressed firmly to him, and when she comes, body writhing against his, whining lowly, he can feel the muscles of her stomach contracting beneath his palm. He keeps moving inside her in the same unhurried pace and she keeps moaning in pleasure until he comes.

"Good morning," he says after he slides out of her.

She turns in his arms and he's never seen her like this. Face completely bare, her eyes small from sleep. He smiles lazily. She looks _so_ beautiful.

"Good morning."

"This was the best night of sleep I've ever had," he tells her and she grins before he places a small kiss on her lips. "I have to go home and change for work, but I'll see you later, okay?"

She kisses him back. "Okay."

"Go back to sleep," he tells her. "It's too early."

Her eyes blink closed and she doesn't even hear the door on his way out.

.

.

In that moment, waking up in Harvey's arms, it felt like everything had changed, but it doesn't feel quite like that when she steps back into the firm. Everything feels too familiar, and not in a good way.

Harvey gets in a little after her and greets her good morning like he hadn't already done that two hours ago naked in her bed. Some of that heaviness she saw last night is back on his shoulders and it's not even 10AM when he avoids a conversation with Louis over who should run the firm which would most likely have turned into a fight, but he avoided the conflict because he had already fought Mike that morning when he delivered the news that he wasn't accepting Harvey's offer to go back to the firm.

And then Harvey's running around all day trying to get Mike another job which, in all fairness, was her advice to him, but she didn't think he would spend all day doing that, long enough for Louis to cause a disaster trying to run the firm and for her to squirm and lose her mind wondering where they stand.

He must know, she thinks. He must know she wouldn't have agreed to last night, she wouldn't have asked him to stay, she wouldn't have had sex with him this morning if things weren't different. He must have felt it last night. So she tries to steady herself, but it's no help that Harvey is so distracted.

It's late at night when she goes into his office to drop some documents on his desk and gets surprised finding Harvey sitting there in the dark.

"Did you know what Louis was up to?" he asks.

"I did."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I said Louis wasn't ready to be managing partner but maybe you aren't either, because you're not around enough to know what's going on around here," she says, trying to make sure the frustration in her tone is only about the firm and not about them.

"I don't believe this. You're the one who said to do something about Mike."

"Yes, I did, but I didn't say you should spend your entire existence doing it."

"Donna–"

"Harvey, you can't do whatever you want. Jessica is not here to pick up the slack anymore."

His voice takes a dive then. "You think I don't know that?"

"Well, if you do then it's time you do what she would've done already," she says, taking a seat at the armchair near him. "You need to tell Louis he can't be managing partner."

"He doesn't wanna hear it."

"I know that. But the real reason we're having this conversation is that you're afraid to say it." His face falls at her words and she thinks about all the things _she_ is afraid to say to _him_, but focuses on the situation in hand. "It's up to you, Harvey. Either step up and take the reigns or start looking for another job, because if you don't tell Louis he's not ready to run this firm, we're gonna be out of business one way or the other."

He takes in her words in silence and she gets up to leave. Tonight is clearly not the best moment to have the conversation they need to have. She's by the door when his voice beckons her back.

"Thank you for letting me stay last night."

"You don't need to thank me," she tells him, not even thinking about her words.

"No, I do. I know it's not part of our deal and I know we had our reasons for not doing it before but… I needed it."

She stares at him in silence, her lips just slightly apart as something heavy drops in her stomach. He thinks last night was a favor, an act of generosity from her, a one time exception to their agreement. She thought he understood, that he had finally seen… her lips part, head empty of the words she wanted so badly to say. So she smiles sadly and leaves him to his thoughts.

.

.

She thought they were done for the night but she still needs to put her feelings aside to stop his fight with Louis and talk to him about the one subject she had always known was off limits. He needs to reconcile with his mother or he'll never be able to fill the void she's left behind. So she tells him that, softly asking him to, please, go talk to her.

.

.

It just feels like bad timing.

The moments seem to slip by until she loses her courage and she tells herself she's waiting for an opportunity that never seems to arise, though she feels like they've had twelve years of missed chances.

Harvey is focussed on keeping the firm on its feet, on balancing his and Louis' decisions and on getting Mike into the Bar, and she focuses on her project with Benjamin. It's a good distraction until it makes something shift inside her, something that was there but she wasn't paying attention to or squashing down, a need for something more because being the best legal secretary in New York City was never her entire life plan and it hasn't felt like enough in a long time.

It's ironic that she has spent weeks trying to find the right moment to talk to him and when the moment falls on her head, unannounced but loudly screaming its presence, she chokes.

She had come to his office tonight to talk about work. About this project and the deal Louis had been able to get her, but when Harvey tells her she should give up and take the money she trembles in her spot because that's not what she wants.

She wants more. From work, from life, from _him_. And she has never said that out loud before but she can't pretend it's not true anymore.

He asks her, what does she mean _more._ But how can she tell him when he's looking at her with so much apprehension, confusion and fear in his eyes. How can she tell him when the last time the word _love_ floated around their relationship it ripped them apart. How can she say what she means when his arms sagging at the sides of his body and his parted lips almost beg her not to. How can she tell him she's in love with him when she's petrified herself because Harvey is so much more than she can stand to lose.

"I don't know, Harvey…" She backtracks and she feels like a coward. "I guess I'm gonna have to figure that out."

.

.

The next day she asks for a seat at the table. One step at a time, she thinks, and this one seems much less scary than asking for his heart.

Three weeks later she finds out he's dating his therapist.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

He wouldn't call it _panic. _

No. He doesn't panic anymore. But something about the way he felt when Donna told him she wanted more brought back all the crushing sensations he felt when he used to panic, like he was one step from it, right on the cusp, because she was one step from telling him he wasn't enough.

If his emotional awareness spread wide enough he would maybe realize that's the connection his mind made: things that caused him a crushing fear; things that Paula helped him come to terms with; Paula.

He hadn't seen her in a long time and after researching his past calendars and the American Psychological Association Ethics Code he finds it's long enough.

He also hadn't really thought about her in that period, if he's honest, but he had before, when he was seeing her in a professional capacity. Paula is an attractive woman who would challenge him and didn't let him get away with his bullshit and something about her then – about the way she would listen and steer him in the right direction and help him understand things, something about the way she understood him – brought him a sense of calm he could really use right now.

So he went after her and asked her out and insisted on it and now he feels like he's made the right choice. He wants to invest in this, to make it work with her because he's been wanting something to work in his life for a while now. A real relationship.

As Paula had pointed out, before he asked her out they had spent about fifty hours together in total and all of it talking about him. He didn't know much about her but he was excited to learn because he feels so much better now, having her in his life, being committed, feeling like he's enough for her. Like he's enough for someone.

He has an entire firm to run now and everybody is at his throat, mad at him for one reason or the other or telling him he's not doing a good enough job as managing partner and not even Donna is on his side anymore. He feels like a goddamn rookie sometimes, having to call Jessica for advice and prove everyday, to himself and to others, that he can do this job.

But not when he's with Paula. She told him she had fantasies about him sweeping her off her feet ever since they met. She cares for him and she trusts him, and he even feels like the more mature person in his relationship sometimes, for the first time in his life, when she gets anxious about their relationship and he has to convince her that it's okay to be scared together and she agrees and falls into his arms.

He feels in command and he really needed that.

Paula is wonderful at numbing down the world.

.

.

Everything feels different now. Jessica is not there, Mike is a partner butting heads with Alex instead of being by his side, he's actually responsible now for anything crazy Louis attempts to pull off and, the most disconcerting thing of all, Donna's not right there outside his office to manage his life because she's not his secretary anymore.

He stares at a picture framed on the wall to the right side of his desk and breathes in slowly, thinking at least she's right there, still handling everything, still keeping the firm on its feet, on her way to making one hell of a COO.

It's already late at night when he finishes up his case and walks into her office. It's about work, as all of their conversations have been lately.

"Donna, before you go home tonight I need you to cut me a check for Holly," he says, entering her office.

"What do you mean? I'm gonna put her in the payroll," she frowns.

"She doesn't wanna work here anymore. Said she'd rather do one-off jobs if at all. Here's the amount."

She takes the sheet of paper he extends in her direction. "I don't understand, I was good with having her."

"Well, whatever you said made her not good with having us." He shrugs slightly, sitting down in front of her.

"Harvey, we're a tight-knit group. We don't betray each other and we don't keep secrets from each other," she poses carefully, explaining her reasoning, which he already knew and doesn't care much about because he trusts her judgment, but the way she puts it now makes a knot of guilt tighten his throat and he looks at her unblinking, hoping she doesn't notice the way he swallows it down.

"I had to find out where she stood," Donna says. "And if the cost of that was her not coming here, then I don't regret it."

He finds her defensiveness slightly amusing. "I understand, Donna. I'm not coming down on you. I just need the check."

She still looks concerned, tilting her head and fixing him with a piercing but somehow still soft look. "Harvey, is there something that you're not telling me about this woman? 'Cause it seems like you've been different lately and… I don't know." She shakes her head, letting her sentence fade into air and it must be weird for her, not knowing something. It definitely is weird for him having her in the dark, but for once he's grateful for it. He never had to tell her anything, she's always just known, but she doesn't know this and something pulls uncomfortably inside him, urging him to tell her about this one thing he hasn't yet mustered the courage to. They don't lie and they don't keep secrets and he's doing both right now.

"It's nothing about this woman." He swallows down the confession that it's about another one. "I just thought she'd be a good addition, but these things happen."

"It's funny. I love my new position but I miss this." She smiles at him and leans back into her chair and all of a sudden it feels like them again, in a way it hasn't felt in weeks and he's been keeping his mind off of it, filling it up with work and his new relationship, but he _hates_ that they haven't been them.

"I miss it, too."

He misses it so much the words hurt his throat on their way out and he can't look at her for a second, but at least he's not alone in the feeling. So he smiles back.

"You want me to pour us a couple drinks?" she offers.

His mouth hangs open and undecided because he needs to go see Paula and he really doesn't think he can stay here having drinks with Donna and not tell her about Paula. "Maybe tomorrow night. I have something I have to deal with right now."

"Okay. I'll cut you that check."

She looks at him, a fond familiarity in her gaze and tight-lipped smile, and he's frozen there, gazing at her as she focuses on filling out the check, and his chest feels tight.

She's been distant and tense and managerial lately and he hadn't even gotten a chance to talk to her about how she's feeling in her new position yet, though he imagines she loves it since just the other day she cut off his joke and told him she never wants back on his desk. She also never misses a chance to remind him she's not his secretary anymore, like he could ever forget that. So, for all he knows, she's never been better.

He goes home to Paula and, like usual, she manages to make him forget about the world for a night, but the next morning his conflicting thoughts and something he makes a point of not labeling guilt are still nagging him so he decides to tell Paula about it and see what she has to say.

The daylight barely filters through his windows, gloomy and gray. Paula's been awake for a while, but he's still in bed, lacking the energy to get up and trying to put his thoughts in order.

She's fully dressed and ready to go out when she brings him a cup of coffee and kisses him, and when he asks her to wait, she seems to think he wants her to come back to bed.

He tells her he hasn't told Donna about them yet and the stiff pause in Paula's manner makes him wonder if he should have told her at all. He explains that there's too much history there and he had just promoted Donna and he doesn't want to create a problem when there isn't one.

Paula thinks those are all excuses, but she's calm and reasonable in that lovely way that placates his anxieties and steers him in the right direction when she suggests he should tell Donna and that he knows that already, before she smiles and leaves him to his coffee.

The coffee is weak, bitter and tepid.

.

.

So he tells her. He finds Donna alone in her office at night and fills his lungs with courage and tells her he's been seeing Paula Agard, and not as his therapist anymore.

Maybe that was not the best way to phrase it but, as it turns out, Donna already knew. She could point out exactly what had happened and when it did and he's torn between a warm feeling in his chest at the realizations that, despite their distance, she still _notices him_ and knows him this well, and another, much colder and uncomfortable feeling he can't name.

He thinks he should probably feel relief at how smoothly the conversation went, but he doesn't. He feels out of sorts and lost and unsettled at the fact that Donna knew all along, that she's happy for him and wants him to tell her all about it some other day.

So he leaves her to finish work and goes to Paula's place to apologize for snapping at her earlier in the evening when she pressed him about telling Donna. Maybe she was right – maybe he liked the thought of being the object of Donna's _attention and affection_ and he wasn't ready to lose that – but she was also completely wrong about Donna having feelings for him because, as far as he could tell, she couldn't care less.

.

.

When Donna eventually tells him that she _didn't_ actually know and that it _did_ bother her, that's when the relief kicks in. He feels like a prized asshole for that, for deep down expecting or hoping she would have some feelings about him being in a relationship with someone else. He doesn't want to upset her, but her complete indifference cuts deep. This, _this_ he gets. He relates. He's always felt the same about her relationships – bothered.

.

.

They go on like that. She told him she got what she wanted when she asked for more, that she's really happy for him, and she's still there, working, right beside him, so even though everything feels so different he tells himself it's just the same.

There's not much time to dwell on it anyway, because only a few days later he and Mike find themselves in the middle of a case against Andrew Malik, whom he has no recollection of ever having met, but Donna does, and she's there to help with the case and to become Malik's scapegoat, as he puts her on the stand and humiliates her, trying to convince the judge that Donna would do anything for him and that he would have her destroy evidence.

He sees how it breaks Donna having to once again be torn to shreds for her relationship with him. A relationship they didn't even really have and that has cost them so much over the years to not have. To keep apart. And finding her in his office later that night, a slow tear running down Donna's cheek in the darkness as she tells him how much she wanted to get back at Malik for what he did, Harvey understands some things he didn't completely comprehend before, things about why it was so important to her to have rules, to not sleep with people she worked with, about not wanting to fall for him… because that's how the world sees secretaries who sleep with their bosses, even when they've done nothing wrong, even when they did everything to deserve their position, even when they're not even secretaries anymore.

He uses what Donna had figured out about Holly Cromwell's involvement to win the case against Malik and he hopes it gives her some comfort knowing he couldn't have done it without her.

.

.

He texts Donna about it, tells her they won the case and goes home a little earlier that night, thinking he deserves some rest. That is until he finds Malik waiting for him in his building, telling him he decided to seek revenge by going after his old mentor and getting Jessica disbarred.

.

.

Jessica's already in his apartment when he walks through the door, on the phone and ready for battle, but she tells him to put down his weapons. She doesn't need to be a lawyer in New York City and the only thing he should worry about now is how much he's going to spend to buy her out and how they're going to spin this to the world since a disbarred name partner would definitely be bad for business.

He pours them a drink before they leave the apartment together; her going to her hotel room, him going back to the firm to start doing exactly what Jessica told him.

He walks to Donna's office when he gets to the firm. It's already late, but Donna has been working late every day since he promoted her, even later than she already used to, so like he assumed, she's right there.

"Good, you're still here," he says, upon entering her office. "Where's Louis? Because I have some news and I think you should both–"

Her lips are on his before he even realizes how close she is.

She wraps her arms around his neck and presses her lips to his, soft and careful. It doesn't feel like their first kisses usually do, in the beginning of the night, when they finally reunite after a year apart and miss each other with a crushing urgency. It feels like the last ones – in the dead of night, when they're tired and soft and know it's going to be their last kiss for twelve long months and miss each other with a nostalgic sorrow.

And he doesn't want it to end, he doesn't want to let her go, his body acting like it's a first kiss of many more and leaning down closer to her but, the second he does, he feels her pulling away, her lips parting from his while her fingertips slowly trace their way down his jawline and he knows it's all going to be over before he even takes a breath.

So he leans closer, crashing his lips back against hers, his hands reaching for her waist and her face to pull her in and keep her close, lips parting and moving against hers with suffocating need until their tongues meet and a little noise vibrates in the back of her throat.

Her body is flush with his and her hands trace their way back to where they were before, where they belong, like a movie in reverse, up along his jaw to the back of his neck and into the short strands of his hair and he feels like she's all the air his lungs need.

He angles his head and cradles her face and keeps her close and kisses her long and deep and there is not a single thought going through his mind except _her_ until she mumbles his name into his mouth. He moves to her neck, sucking the soft skin between his lips, but that was his mistake because then she's calling his name again and gently pushing him away.

He finds her eyes and it startles him, reality snapping back in place even before her raspy voice tells him, "Harvey, you can't…"

She takes a small step back and that's when he realizes he had walked her back and was one step from pushing her up against the desk.

He's paralyzed and confused and lost and turned on as hell and he can do little else other than look at her, lips parted and eyebrows drawing together the slightest, waiting for an explanation for both of their actions.

Her left hand on the lapel of his suit is keeping him away but she still has her right one on his face and her thumb grazes softly over his mouth, like she's asking for something else entirely.

"I'm sorry, Harvey…" she says in the softest of tones. "I just had to know."

And then she side-steps him and walks away, leaving him stranded.

.

.

It could've been a minute or six whole months until he's forced to ignore his racing heart and the tingly sensation all over his body and the desperate need Donna left behind to react.

He walks through the firm's hallways in a daze, focusing on getting home so he can deal with himself, when Louis' voice catches him right by the elevators.

"Harvey, I just got your voicemail. We need to figure out a way to stop Malik before–"

"It's too late, Louis. It's done." He doesn't even glance in his direction, calling the elevator instead.

"What? That's not possible."

"It's a done deal, Louis. Jessica's getting disbarred. There's nothing we can do," he tells the man with exhaustion and clear acceptance of the fact.

Louis, on the other hand, is not ready to accept it. "Well, then we need to–"

"I can't talk about this right now, Louis," he cuts him off.

"All right, look, Harvey, I get that you're shaken by this, and I am too, but if this is really happening we need to figure out how we're gonna handle this and we need to do that tonight."

"I don't care. We'll have to deal with it tomorrow," he says with a finality, thanking god when the elevator arrives.

"Well, wait, what about Donna?"

His heart misses a beat at the mention of her name and he looks back at Louis, startled. "What about her?"

"Does she know what's going on?"

Right. Louis is talking about the Jessica situation, _not_ about…

"No," he says. "She doesn't. And if you don't mind I'd rather you tell her yourself."

It's only when the doors close and he's alone that he's able to fill his lungs with some much-needed air.

.

.

He thought being alone would help clear his thoughts and cool off but when he walks into his apartment with a heaviness in his head and chest and pants, his every hope crashes and burns because he takes one look into his living room and finds Paula waiting for him on the couch.

"Hey you!" she greets.

"Paula?"

"Harvey, are you okay?" He looks so stunned seeing her there, like he had no recollection of her existence, that she feels the need to check.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head, trying to get his brain back in place. "Yeah, I'm okay, I just didn't expect to see you."

She smiles. "You did give me your key, you know."

"I know, it's just been a long day."

"Does this have anything to do with Donna?" she asks, and for the second time in half an hour he lets himself get startled by the simple mention of her name.

"_What?"_

"Well, you said that man was coming after her. I didn't know how it had all played out."

Relief washes over him along with an inner voice calling him an idiot. "It's over," he tells her. "We got out of it."

"Then let me fix you a drink," Paula says, chirpily, getting up from the couch and walking towards him. "I'll make you anything you want, as long as it involves gin and tonic."

She smiles and kisses him and he cranes his neck down to meet her lips. He places his hands on her waist and she places hers softly on his face and, for a second there, his turmoil settles.

The smile on her face is even bigger when their lips part and she moves into the kitchen to prepare the drinks.

"I'm gonna go take a shower," he tells her. "Be right back."

He locks the bathroom door behind him and when he stares at his own face in the mirror he doesn't get how Paula didn't see there was something wrong. Maybe that's just his guilt talking or the fact that _he knows_ Donna would read every line in his face, the strain in his jaw, and the darkness of his eyes in one instant and know he was not okay. Goddamn Donna.

He takes his jacket off and unfastens his watch, placing it beside the sink, stepping out of his shoes and dragging each piece of clothing off his tired back with his eyes glued to his face in the mirror, trying to read himself and get a sense of what everything he's feeling means. But there is only one feeling he is able to identify.

He steps under the hot spray of water, cranes his neck back letting the water hit his face and wet his hair and his hand finds his achingly hard member.

He squeezes it hard in his fist like he deserves some pain for the erection he shouldn't have right now. Then he groans and pumps his fist slowly up to his tip and all the way back down and squeezes hard again until it hurts when his brain succumbs to the onslaught of images of pale skin and red hair and freckles and lips he can still taste on his tongue.

_Her legs around him, her tight warmth and her breathy moans and her mouth around his cock and Donna in his arms and her teeth on his neck and the way she laughs, low and familiar, kisses his mouth and comes for him._

He needs to place his left hand against the cold tiles to gain some balance, his face falling forward until his forehead presses against the wall, too, eyes shut and fist now doing whatever the hell it damn well pleases to his cock while he allows his memories and desires to run through his bloodstream, under his skin, inside his bones because he fucking wants her with everything he is.

He groans and opens his eyes in time to watch the white stream sliding down the tiles in front of him and being washed away by water.

.

.

He hates gin and tonic. But he chugs it all down while he listens to Paula talk about her day, seated by his side on the couch, and his guilt would make him accept a second drink if he wasn't so convinced any minute now his mask would slip and she would see it.

"Hey, Paula…" he says, letting his fingers slip into the silky strands of her hair. "Do you mind if we go to bed? I have a bit of a headache."

"Oh." She straightens up to take a better look at him. "Sure. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it's just been a rough day. I think it's catching up to me."

"I thought you said you got it all sorted out at work…?"

"We did. But it wasn't easy and it came at one hell of a price."

"What are you talking about? What price?"

He sighs tiredly, rubbing his face with his hand. He's really not up to rehashing the day when the night is burning a hole in his brain. "Jessica got disbarred," he tells her.

"What? Why?"

"Paula... I'm really not up for going through all of this right now. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow, okay?"

"I'm sorry. It really must have been a rough day if it started with Donna being in danger and it ended with Jessica taking the hit."

That gives him some pause, unable to say if she was being genuine or whether there were some ironic undertones to her comment but she smiles sweetly and takes his hand to guide him to the bedroom and he figures it's the former. Irony really isn't like her anyway.

She turns the lights off and slides under the covers beside him and he feels her hand on his stomach, digging under his t-shirt and rubbing circles on his abdomen. He's unmoving, eyes squeezing shut and a real headache starting to form at the feeling of her scooching closer and placing a kiss on his shoulder.

"Maybe I can help you relax a little bit," she whispers, lips reaching for his ear and he doesn't know what the fuck is wrong with him that he almost flinches.

Every muscle in his body strains with the required force of staying still as he places his hand on top of hers just as her fingers inch under the waistband of his pants.

"I'm sorry, Paula, I'm really… not up for it," he tells her and he feels like a goddamn asshole and a housewife faking a headache to get out of sex. The most crushing wave of guilt he's felt all night suddenly hits him and this time it feels a hundred times worse because it's not about hiding what happened tonight from Paula, it's about being here with her after what happened_ with_ _Donna._

Fucking shit. He's going out of his mind.

"Of course," she says and if she's upset she doesn't let it show. She just snuggles to his side, leaving her arm draped over his stomach and accepts sleep when it finds her.

He's grateful for her understanding and not pushing him to talk or to do anything else and for the quiet calm her breathing beside him brings about.

Paula acts like the medications she used to prescribe him. He doesn't feel the anxiety but, in a realization that only occurs to him tonight, he notes he also doesn't feel much else. She numbs him down. He used to think of it as her greatest quality – calming him, making him forget the world and his troubles and think that this peaceful life by her side belonged to him, made him happy – now he ponders that maybe he feels drowsy and lethargic. He never thought of himself as someone who would settle for anything in life so he doesn't really know why he's always thought her settling _him_ was a good thing.

She always curls up to his side before falling asleep yet somehow they always wake up on different sides of the bed.

.

.

_Can't she see? The man she was meant to be with is standing right in front of her face? I should've told her when I had the chance, but that's something I'm going to have to live with for the rest of my life._

Louis' words continue to echo inside her mind all night long, every time fear creeps into her skin that maybe she made a huge mistake kissing Harvey like that, the words are there to remind her that simply letting Harvey go would've been an even bigger mistake and she wouldn't have been able to live with that.

She should've told him sooner, she should've told him as soon as she realized that she…

But the fact is, she doesn't know when exactly she fell in love with him. Maybe it's always been there, denied and buried under fear and self-preservation and the optimistic belief that, even if she did love him, she could move past that because Harvey wasn't ready.

Except sometimes she thought he might be.

After everything they've been through together all these years, side by side as partners, and the way he looked at her, touched her, made love to her, and every time his lips on hers practically spelled what his words would later deny.

Mike was right – they could be _so happy_ together...

She had to know.

She forces some sleep into herself, replaying Harvey's lips on hers until it slips into her dreams.

.

.

She expected Harvey to be angry, of course she did, because that's his first response to everything that catches him off guard and messes with his feelings. She didn't expect him to refuse to talk to her or, hell, even look at her, and she didn't expect his only words on the matter to be _I just want you to say, it's never gonna happen again_.

That was a slap in the face. It hurt, and how fucking hypocritical of him because she may have started it but he sure as hell didn't seem willing to end it, but she sucks it up and stands tall and acts unaffected by his words, because even though she doesn't regret what she did, she does regret the fact that it uncovered his deepest wound.

She also didn't expect him to spend the day belittling her professionally and she's been sucking it up all day because she understands his anger and knows there's no dealing with Harvey when he's like this, but after he completely humiliates her in that interview, she's decided to make him talk, to stop this before it completely ruins their relationship.

She apologizes to Kyle Clemente much less profusely than she should and hurries to take an elevator right after Harvey, managing to stop him in the lobby.

"Harvey, we're gonna have that talk and we're gonna have it right now."

"Donna–"

"No. It is one thing to take it out on me, but what you did in that interview was horrible and selfish."

That finally makes him stop running and turn to face her.

"Okay, you wanna talk about what happened? Let's talk about what happened, because if anyone knows about selfish, it's you."

"You have some nerve saying that to me when you know I have put you over me for years," she tells him, making an enormous effort to stay calm, the unfairness of his words boiling under her skin.

"I don't care what you've done for years. You knew I was seeing someone and you did that to me anyway. Paula didn't deserve that."

"Since you're bringing _her_ into this conversation, she was your therapist, Harvey! She was supposed to help you, not screw you. And need I remind you that _you kissed me back?_ I may have started it but you sure as hell didn't stop it."

He bypasses Paula's mention and his own fault in the matter, focusing on the thing that has been on his mind all day long. "Why did you start it?"

"I told you, Harvey. I needed to know."

"Know what? Our lines have been perfectly clear for a long time." They have rules, _an agreement_, they know exactly what they can and cannot do, down to a date on the calendar.

"Our lines are as blurry as lines can get," she tells him, _finally_ letting out what had been suffocating her for so long. Because this is the hard truth Harvey doesn't want to hear – what they have tears down the boundaries of the lines they carefully traced with the force of a tidal wave rushing down against the shore, and it has been for years. They've been pretending they have any control over it, that they know exactly where they stand, but they don't. "I'm the person that you call at six in the morning. Or at midnight when you need someone. We smile, we drink, we flirt, we sleep together–"

"That doesn't mean I want more!" Harvey blurts out, cutting her off with the exact words he threatened to utter for years, unsaid at the end of each of his 'but that doesn't mean…', never telling her what the hell it did mean, but if after everything they've been through _that's_ how he feels, if it never meant anything for him, then she'll say she doesn't want more either. That she doesn't feel anything. That whatever she thought might be there wasn't and put a definitive end to them because this is killing her.

She would say all that, but she doesn't get a chance, Harvey's voice cutting words from her mouth once again.

"For twelve fucking years you've been keeping me away," he says. "I was only allowed to touch you one day a year. And, god forbid, on that day we were swamped with work or some shit or we would miss our shot. Or that you were dating someone then you would just ditch me. And now, _now_ that I'm in a committed relationship with someone else, you decide that it's okay to just kiss me whenever you feel like it?! Do you have any idea how many times I wanted to kiss you, all this time… And I couldn't? I had to keep myself in check? Now you decide to be impulsive?"

She shakes her head and avoids his eyes for a moment, before she says, "Don't be a hypocrite, Harvey. You've been keeping me away just as much. And when I thought things could maybe change between us, that maybe you were ready... you ran away again. I told you I wanted more and you decided to fuck your therapist."

His jaw strains with force, hands in clenching fists at the sides of his body. "You created a hundred fucking rules to keep me away, you made up our agreement and you never gave me the chance to–"

"I gave myself to you everyday, Harvey! So much that you thought we had everything while I was still trying to figure out what we could have."

"Yeah, but you never wanted everything, did you? You locked me out, you told me to forget you, to pretend it never happened, then you decided it was only okay to be together once a year... you said it yourself, you didn't want to fall for me!"

"How can you be such an idiot? Yeah, maybe for a long time I wasn't ready for everything, but you told me you loved me and you could never tell me what it meant. You took one step forward and then pretended you didn't know where you were headed. You were never there emotionally, Harvey. And I get it, it's scary. I was scared too and I should've told you sooner but…"

She's searching for a way to tell him, when he says, "You know how I feel about cheating, you know how it destroyed my family and you still decided to do what you did. You messed with my relationship. You made me the one thing I never wanted to be."

He turns to leave and she has to shout to his back, "It was a kiss, Harvey! We've done more than that. Unless of course you haven't told her that either."

He turns back to her and works his jaw, lips set in a straight line and it couldn't be more clear that he hadn't told Paula anything about them.

She lets her head drop for a second, breathing in and walking closer to him. "You're saying I made you a cheater. Well, let me tell you something, Harvey. You can look down on me and say you don't want more and that's okay. But the minute you start pretending you don't feel anything, you're lying to me. Because when it's the two of us, together, _I know you do_. So the minute you go to Paula and tell her your heart is available, you're lying to her, too. And the minute you walk away telling yourself how we feel about each other doesn't mean anything, you're lying to yourself. What do you think cheating means, Harvey? You're lying to everybody, including yourself, and as far as I'm concerned, even if I hadn't kissed you last night, you're not being loyal to anyone."

That knocks him out completely and he can't say anything else.

"The feelings are there, Harvey, and everyone can see it except you. I see it but it's not enough. It's not enough that I know you do. I need_ you _to know. I need you to willingly love me."

He's left unmoving and barely breathing while she turns around and takes the elevator back to the fiftieth floor.

.

.

The sense of déjà vu is inescapable as he leaves the building for the second night in a row drowning in his thoughts and feeling like a goddamn cheater, except this time Paula is not the one tormenting his guilt as he faces the possibility he might have been disloyal to Donna.

He needs to tell Paula what happened. He's been making so many mistakes but this is something he can fix – he can tell her about the kiss – so he tells the driver to turn around and head to Paula's apartment instead of his.

He lets himself in and waits for her on the couch, looking up when her voice cheerfully greets him.

"Hey! I didn't know you were coming over."

"I didn't know I was, either, but I got in a cab and ended up here..."

The reticence in his words tips her off and she eyes him suspiciously.

"Paula, I need to tell you something." His tone is stiff and the way he glances at the armchair beside him tells her this is a serious conversation. She sits down and waits for what he has to say.

"The truth is, I should've told you the other night, but I was afraid."

"Harvey, what's going on?"

"Donna kissed me."

"What?" she croaks.

"I walked in to talk to her about Jessica getting disbarred and, before I knew it, she kissed me."

Paula's silent for so long it makes him start to sweat. Then she swallows and leans back into her chair and all of a sudden he has a different kind of déjà vu because this conversation starts to feel a lot like one of their old therapy sessions.

"And what did _you_ do?" Paula asks, her tone not as much calm as it is cold.

He's here to make things right because he's not a cheater and the way to stop being one is to start being honest, so he has no intention of hiding this from her. "I… kissed her," he says.

He lets her take her time processing the information and her voice is in the same steely tone when she finally says, "You've obviously always had feelings for her, I can't say that surprises me."

Harvey's eyes widen at her words and he doesn't know what to say to that. She had said some things before about Donna having feelings for him and how he liked being the object of her attention and affection, but he thought she was just jealous, not that she actually thought there was something going on between them, much less that _he_ had feelings for Donna, because what the hell would Paula be doing in a relationship with a man she thought had feelings for someone else?

"I'm surprised something like this hasn't happened before," Paula continues and the way he twists uncomfortably in his seat and his mouth parts in silence makes her understand, "Something like this _has_ happened before, hasn't it?"

"Paula… you know some of my history with her. We've known each other for years and…" He doesn't really know how to explain who Donna is to him. How to put everything they are in a one-line definition that would encompass everything his own mind can't wrap itself around and, at the same time, not hurt Paula more than he already has. How can he look Paula in the eyes and say Donna is the most important person in his life? It just seems cruel and, at this point, it doesn't even matter. "What I mean is, it has happened before, but not since we've been together."

Paula bites her lip to try and keep the tears collecting in her eyes from spilling over, avoiding Harvey's gaze.

"Paula, I'm sorry this happened and that I didn't tell you before, but I don't want to lie to you. You know me and you know how I feel about cheating, but Donna made me see that I haven't been the most honest in this situation from the start so–"

"You talked to Donna about this?" Paula snaps.

"Yes..."

"So let me see if I understand this. You kiss another woman, lie to me about it, refuse to spend the night with me, and then the next day you're having a discussion about your feelings with her?"

"Paula, it wasn't like that…"

"Well, then tell me how it was, Harvey, because it seems to me that's exactly how it went."

He can't really reply to that.

"Look, I haven't been completely honest with you either," she says. "Your relationship with Donna… it does bother me. You having another woman in your life that you care about, it does intimidate me, because I've been in this situation before, Harvey."

"What are you talking about?"

"I told you my ex had cheated on me. But what I didn't tell you was that it was with a woman he worked with and, just before it ended, it felt like there were three people in our relationship. Well, with you it's worse because it has felt like there are three people in our relationship from the start. We wouldn't even have met if it wasn't for Donna leaving you. You didn't want to tell her about us, even on our first date you were distracted talking about work and _her_, Harvey! And now this."

"This isn't fair," he says, because even if right now they find themselves in this situation, he did give this relationship a real shot. He committed to her, he tried to...

"I'm just being honest with you, Harvey. You're too connected to her and you can't let go. This is not healthy for you. It keeps you from committing because you keep using whatever it is that you have with Donna as a substitute for a real relationship."

"We have a real relationship!"

The ambiguity in his words doesn't go unnoticed by Paula. She wants to believe he means _them_, but he could just as easily have meant him and Donna.

"I'm sorry, Harvey. I hate that I feel weak, and insecure, but the truth is, if you keep working with Donna, we won't survive."

"_What? _You're asking me to fire her?" he asks quietly, almost scared of even uttering the words.

She looks at him, stern and determined, even through the sadness in her eyes, and it's clear that's exactly what she's asking of him even if she won't flat out say it. It leaves him stunned.

"Paula, Donna and I have worked together for twelve years. You and I have been seeing each other for three months. You think I'm gonna _fire her?_"

That was _not _the response she expected from him, her lips parting with shock and burning humiliation. She blinks and her tears finally spill from her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she says with a pained irony. "I thought what we have meant something to you."

The shame of letting his first thought out without sugar-coating the words makes him flinch. He never meant to hurt her, but he keeps doing it again and again. He clenches his jaw and rubs his hand over his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Paula, that's not what I meant. It did mean something to me, but I can't give you what you need."

"Meaning you can never let go of Donna," she says, her voice tight with strained sobs. "Well, if that's the case, then why are you even here, Harvey?"

_To break up with you._

That was his intention from the second he realized his feelings for her weren't what he thought they were, but their conversation took a turn he didn't see coming with Paula negotiating terms to save a relationship he didn't want saved.

He doesn't say it but his silence, heavy with awkwardness, tells Paula enough, her mouth gaping and more tears slowly spilling over.

"I can't believe this. You are giving up what we have together for what you don't have with Donna?"

"You don't know what we have, Paula…" he says, tiredly.

"Yes, I do. You have an unhealthy codependency to her and she uses it to manipulate you because she's in love with you, Harvey, and you're the only one who can't see that!"

His first instinct is to tell her off, to defend Donna, but then… Paula's words sink in.

_She's in love with you_

His eyes go out of focus and he's hit with a crushing stream of realizations, Paula's voice low in the background against the noise of his walls breaking down.

"I believed in you, Harvey. I was the only one who ever saw who you were. All your baggage, all your flaws… and I accepted you for it."

Except she wasn't.

She only knows as much as he told her about himself and he did it because she was his therapist. Donna knows all of him, even the parts he couldn't see. She knows him in a raw, fundamental, instinctual way and she's the only one whom he has ever trusted all of himself to. And she doesn't just accept him for it, she _loves_ him for it.

It's not easy finding someone like that in this world and she is the only one who…

"You keep compromising for her," Paula says. "And you're going to end up alone because of it. I am here for you, Harvey. You get to come home to me and you're throwing all of that away. What are you going to do when you feel lonely? When you have a big victory or a terrible loss and you have no one to run and tell?"

Donna had been there for every single one of his most crushing losses and none of his most important victories would've ever meant anything if she hadn't been there, right beside him. She's the only one he ever wants to run to and she has been for as long as he can remember.

"Paula, I am so sorry, but I have to go."

He stands, eyes lost and heart hammering inside his chest, opening his suit jacket, ready to run and fight and do anything to be with Donna and to tell her he finally sees it, that he's been an idiot, that he never thought she loved him like this because she is _perfect _and he's a goddamn idiot who couldn't even understand that the fact that she has always been his everything meant that he loved her with everything he is.

"You're just leaving?" Paula's indignant question rings behind, but he's already at the door.

.

.

He races through town and curses the traffic. His heart pounds as if he was physically running to her, adrenaline depriving his brain of oxygen and when he knocks on her door in a haste and she pulls it open to gaze wide-eyed at his overwhelmed expression, standing there, bared at her doorstep with his heart on his sleeve, he takes a long-overdue breath and realizes his mind is completely empty.

He doesn't have a playbook, a script of all the things he wants to say to her, a list of things unsaid piled up throughout the years that sit heavily on his chest and a long stream of _I love you and I'm sorry I've been an idiot and why didn't you tell me and remember that time? I wanted it to last forever and I still do forever and you and I love you._

But goddamn Donna. She can read every line on his face and glint in his eye and maybe even the waves of heat emanating from his body and she knows. She knows all the things he's not saying and she has known for a while now, but what's different this time, what she sees for the first time that wasn't there before, what changes everything, is that now _he knows. _And she can see that.

One. Two. Three. Slowly stepping back and her eyes change from wide to dark. She's letting him in but she needs him to take the first step.

She needs him to willingly love her.

And he does. A faraway thought of how his love for her has always been there, in each fiber of his being and beat of his heart, coursing through his veins as the most fundamental part of him, as he strides forward with urgency and crushes his mouth against hers.

She kisses him, arms lifting around his neck and hands touching his face and then he has no thoughts at all anymore, lunging them both against the wall, lifting Donna on top of the foyer table, pressing himself into her.

He's been in love with her for so long and neither of them really knew it before, so he wants to make her feel. With every bite of his teeth into her neck and stroke of his hands over her body and his tongue invading her mouth. He wants her to know.

Donna weaves her fingers through his hair and scratches her nails down his back as she pants breathily in his ear and he can't get enough of her. He never could.

She holds him and kisses him like he's her whole world and she melts under his touch, giving herself to him like she's always been his.

Their gazes meet somehow in the haste of their need and time stands still. His eyes dark and riveted on her, breaths heavy, and their palms pressing against each other. Donna's fingers slide between his like a statement and a promise and that's how he wants to be for the rest of his life.

She guides him like she'd always done. She takes his hand and guides him to where he wants to go, guides him to become the person he wants to be. Guides him to her bedroom.

She turns and gazes up at him and he's hanging heavily there because this is too monumental, it's _her_ and it's the beginning of the rest of their lives and he shouldn't know how he wants a story to end when it's just beginning, but he does, and he figures this started twelve years ago so it's not like he's getting ahead of himself by thinking he's going to love her forever.

Then he kisses her, because she's looking at him and seeing everything he's not saying and he can't really make more than five steps without kissing her.

He kisses her all the way to the bedroom and kisses her while she slides the tie off his neck and while she unbuttons his shirt. He does stop to pull her silky top off her body, Donna raising her arms above her head to help him as his hands slide over fabric and skin, then he wraps his arms around her and kisses her while he lays her down on the bed.

He's on top of her, lips brushing and sucking down her neck and chest to keep her pinned to the bed while he pushes both their pants down, throwing them to the floor.

"Harvey…"

It's the first actual words they've said to each other since he got here and he's always loved the sound of his name on her mouth, so he kisses her to taste it, too.

Donna scratches her fingernails down his back, the long expanse of smooth, shivering skin and muscles contracting at her touch, and she pushes his boxer briefs down his legs with hands and feet, Harvey's hands moving around her body prompting her to arch her back so he can unhook her bra.

He catches himself staring into her hooded hazel eyes as he cups a breast. "Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?" he asks, and god, he hopes he did. It's been all this time thinking she's the most breathtaking thing he's ever laid eyes upon and he would hate himself if he had never let her know that. He kneads it gently, and then finds her lips as his thumb flicks her nipple.

Donna moans quietly into his mouth and reaches between their bodies, stroking his cock, her knuckles brushing Harvey's stomach as she presses him against her lower belly. He's hard and swollen, the head leaking moisture while her thumb circles his tip and Harvey bites her lips.

His fingers hook into the sides of her underwear and he pulls it down with her help, lifting her hips and kicking it out of her feet, and they smile at each other when it gets tossed to the floor along with the rest of their clothes. He has her lying naked beneath him, breathing hard and clutching his neck while his hand strokes down her body.

Sliding to her side, he keeps one of her thighs locked between his legs, keeping her from shifting away as his hand makes its way from her breasts, down her stomach to the heat between her thighs. He brushes his fingers over her lips and Donna whimpers at the feeling, holding his face in her hands and kissing him deeply as Harvey's fingertips reacquaint themselves with each wet fold, avoiding the spot where she wants him the most.

"You know what I just thought?" he asks in a hoarse mumble against her lips.

"Mm… That you'd like to hurry up?" Donna says, trying to grind her hips up into his hand, but the weight of his leg doesn't let her.

He chuckles. "No. That I love how I know you so well, that we have been together all these years… That I know exactly what to do to have you moaning in my arms."

And she could call him a smug idiot, even if half-heartedly, but he sinks two fingers inside her and swipes his thumb around her clit and she moans so there's really no denying his point.

His body draws closer to hers, pressed against her side with her thigh between his, the fingers of one hand weaving through her hair and the other thrusting inside her while he kisses her, tongue licking into her mouth.

He kisses down her neck, sucking softly at the swell of her breasts, his tongue leaving a wet trail to the hardened nipple he sucks into his mouth.

She can't help but let out a small, delirious laugh along with her moans. "You're so proud of yourself, aren't you?"

He raises his head to meet her eyes. "Well. Yes. I like knowing what you like, what makes you whimper and moan," he says and as to deliver some evidence he presses the heel of his hand down over the hood of her clit, prompting her to exactly the reaction he described and he smirks happily watching her.

His fingers thrust in and out of her, thumb rubbing her clit while he kisses her neck, the only sounds in the room coming from the wet movements between her legs and Donna's parted lips.

"I love it, too," she breathlessly tells him when he meets her lips one more time.

"Yeah?"

"I love our story. I love knowing that we've always been together."

He kisses her, tugging on her bottom lip, the movement of his fingers inside her growing faster and faster until she has to turn away from his kisses so she can moan and take a breath and come in his hand, tensing around his fingers and in his arms, before melting, wet and beautiful.

He rolls on top of her quivering body, licking at his fingers before his lips meet her collarbone, tracing a path of kisses and swipes of his tongue down her body until his head is between her legs, adjusting Donna's thighs over his shoulders before she has even caught her breath.

"What are you doing down there?" she says when she remembers speech, weekly attempting to pull him back up. "Come back here."

Harvey slides his tongue up her slit, tasting her orgasm and humming in approval.

"I'm not done showing off for all the things I know about you," he tells her with a smile to his voice.

"You've always liked gloating…"

"I _love_ gloating," he says, lapping at her pussy.

She huffs out an indignant and aroused _humph_.

Harvey uses his thumbs to spread her open, gazing down at her swollen lips and clit, glistening wet and sensitive. The tip of his tongue gently traces her folds before he lets his open mouth come in contact with her, closing and sucking her in, feeling Donna's thigh contract around his neck as she grabs his hair.

He goes back to softly lapping her until she relaxes, her arched back flattening down into the mattress and Donna trying to slow her breathing, but he presses his tongue inside her and her efforts are in vain so she lets it all go, moaning loudly.

She's too sensitive from her orgasm and _he does know_ what he's doing to her so this is surely not going to last. He slides up to her clit, sucking it inside his mouth and not letting up. His eyes search for Donna's to find hers shut closed, her mouth open and her head pressed back into the pillow in agonized pleasure, one hand clutching the bedsheets and the other firmly in his hair.

"Ohh, fuck, Harvey, _fuck–"_

She bucks her hips and comes in his mouth and he keeps kissing and licking her all throughout it, prolonging her pleasure that drips wetly down his chin until she begs him to stop.

She's a beautiful, quivering, breathless mess when he lies on top of her and he wants to kiss her but he really thinks she needs to breathe so instead he kisses her neck and tells her he loves her, not realizing that would have an even more devastating effect on her shortness of breath.

Her fingernails dig into his back and she shivers beneath him and he notices her pause, lifting his head from its place in the crook of her neck to look at her.

"What?" he smiles down at her.

"Did you just–"

"–tell you I love you? Yes."

She blinks up at him, her eyes glistening in the darkened room, and when she takes a breath, it's a shaky one, her chest rising with a feeling too vast to fit in it, and she lifts her hand to cradle his jaw, lips softly finding his, kissing him slowly with a tenderness that makes his heart leap and ache.

His fingertips brush her cheekbones and strands of her hair and he feels happier than he ever thought he could be.

"Thought you said you knew that already," he teases with a timid smirk.

She smirks and rolls her eyes and, yeah, maybe she did, but knowing it has never made her feel as happy as she does now, hearing it and feeling it, the certainty of their feelings for each other being out in the open, stripped bare and unequivocal. That's something else entirely.

"I love you, too," she whispers quietly, feeling his mouth widen in a smile against hers before he kisses her again, softly at first, and then deep and determined, tongue sliding against hers.

"Good," he mutters and grinds down on her, his achingly hard erection pressing against her lower belly begging for attention, with him having insisted on keeping tonight all about her to this point, and she moves her hips to adjust him between her legs and grinds herself up towards him, pressing him between her sensitive lips as her arms wrap around his middle.

Harvey groans, meeting her movements and the slickness of her, before he leans back, gripping the backs of her knees, lifting and spreading her legs. One of his hands circles her ankle gently, thumb brushing over the bone there, while the other brushes the tip of his cock up and down her pussy, barely pressing against her opening in a tease.

"Hm… Harvey…"

He leans and trails down kisses towards her inner thigh.

"If you really knew me that well," she says at the tail-end of a moan caused by him rubbing her clit with his cockhead, "you'd be inside me already."

Harvey laughs against her skin and sinks down into her as he lies over her body to catch her whimper with his lips.

Her legs are bent at the knees and raised around him, pressing against his sides as he pounds into her and she says something about _shit, right there_ and _he knows_ it's there, that's what he's been telling her, that making her feel good is his biggest talent – but he still loves hearing her say it.

She bites on his lip and scratches her fingernails up his shoulder blades and the back of his head and squeezes her walls around him.

"_Fuck–" _he grunts. "You're amazing."

He finds her arms behind his head and wraps his fingers around her wrist, moving her hands up over her head, one and then the other, holding her wrists pressed against the mattress while he thrusts in and out of her and deep inside again, the entire weight of his hips pressing into her, and she arches her back beneath him and moans, not able to do much more than take him, her mouth open against his.

He loves her. Every noise she makes and the way she tugs on his bottom lip. The way she'd been his compass for twelve years and still loved him when he got lost. Her walls gripping him tightly inside her and her thrashing under him. The way she moans his name and her scent on the crook of her neck. The way she makes his heart thunder wildly inside his chest.

His hands slide up from her wrists, palms pressing down against hers as their fingers weave between each other, gripping each other tightly as he pounds into her with a force and up and _just right_ and she's coming all around him and he's coming inside her and finally coming home with a series of hoarse grunts.

Then it's all quiet.

He doesn't move. He'd always liked staying inside her just a little while longer after he comes and she'd always known that. She loves that.

He moves his weight to his forearms, pressing them around her as her fingers slide away from his, moving to his back, softly stroking his skin.

Her mouth is red and thoroughly kissed and he leans down and presses his lips to her, breathes her in before he lets their lips part.

"Say that again," she tells him and he does with no hesitancy.

"I love you."

She smiles, happy and his, gazing at his mouth and he tells her, "We're done with rules, okay? This is it. We're together now and I will kiss you whenever the hell I want to, which by the way, is all the damn time, just so you know."

Everything's changed, but not really. It feels like they've always been together, because _they have, _but now they have everything and there's this content sense of inevitability, like all roads would eventually lead them here because that's where they were meant to be. And it doesn't matter if he took a right, and she took a left, and they got a little lost on the way, because their roads intersect at each curve and they're meant to crash into each other's arms and souls.

She laughs but her eyes glisten wet when she says okay and lets him kiss her again and all through the night.

.

.

the end.

* * *

**AN:** I don't even know how to end this. I hope it was worth the wait. Thank you to each one of you that reviewed, tweeted, DMed, smoke signaled, and gave me so much love for this fic. I never expected so much and I'm incredibly grateful and honored. This fic and your response to it has been so special and I'll cherish it forever.

Thank you to Blue and Yvonne for their huge help in making this chapter the best it could be.

I've been writing Darvey fics for two years now and I can't think of a more special way of saying goodbye to this couple that means so much to me. Thank you for the support to each one of my stories in this time, thank you for becoming my friends, and thank you to Blue for being by my side from the start and making me a better writer.

All the love,

Elle.

❤️


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